Geological Observations on South America Part 11

From specimens and notes given me by Lieutenant Stokes, it appears that the lower bed consists of soft muddy sandstone, like that of S. Josef, with many imperfect sh.e.l.ls, including the Pecten Paranensis, d'Orbigny, casts of a Turritella and Scutella. On this there are two strata of the pale brown mudstone, also like that of S. Josef, separated by a darker-coloured, more argillaceous variety, including the Ostrea Patagonica. Professor Ehrenberg has examined this mudstone for me: he finds in it three already known microscopic organisms, enveloped in a fine-grained pumiceous tuff, which I shall have immediately to describe in detail. Specimens brought to me from the uppermost bed, north of the Rio Chupat, consist of this same substance, but of a whiter colour.

Tertiary strata, such as here described, appear to extend along the whole coast between Rio Chupat and Port Desire, except where interrupted by the underlying claystone porphyry, and by some metamorphic rocks; these hard rocks, I may add, are found at intervals over a s.p.a.ce of about five degrees of lat.i.tude, from Point Union to a point between Port S. Julian and S.

Cruz, and will be described in the ensuing chapter. Many gigantic specimens of the Ostraea Patagonica were collected in the Gulf of St. George.

PORT DESIRE.

A good section of the lowest fossiliferous ma.s.s, about forty feet in thickness, resting on claystone porphyry, is exhibited a few miles south of the harbour. The sh.e.l.ls sufficiently perfect to be recognised consist of:--

1. Ostrea Patagonica, d'Orbigny, (also at St. Fe, and whole coast of Patagonia).

2. Pecten Paranensis, d'Orbigny, "Voyage, Pal." (also at St. Fe, S. Josef, S. Julian).

3. Pecten centralis, G.B. Sowerby (also at S. Julian and S. Cruz).

4. Cucullaea alta, G.B. Sowerby (also at S. Cruz).

5. Nucula ornata, G.B. Sowerby.

6. Turritella Patagonica, G.B. Sowerby.

The fossiliferous strata, when not denuded, are conformably covered by a considerable thickness of the fine-grained pumiceous mudstone, divided into two ma.s.ses: the lower half is very fine-grained, slightly unctuous, and so compact as to break with a semi-conchoidal fracture, though yielding to the nail; it includes laminae of selenite: the upper half precisely resembles the one layer at the Rio Negro, and with the exception of being whiter, the upper beds at San Josef and Nuevo Gulf. In neither ma.s.s is there any trace to the naked eye of organic forms. Taking the entire deposit, it is generally quite white, or yellowish, or feebly tinted with green; it is either almost friable under the finger, or as hard as chalk; it is of easy fusibility, of little specific gravity, is not harsh to the touch, adheres to the tongue, and when breathed on exhales a strong aluminous odour; it sometimes contains a very little calcareous matter, and traces (besides the included laminae) of gypsum. Under the microscope, according to Professor Ehrenberg, it consists of minute, triturated, cellular, gla.s.sy fragments of pumice, with some broken crystals. ("Monatsberichten de konig. Akad. zu Berlin" vom April 1845.) In the minute gla.s.sy fragments, Professor Ehrenberg recognises organic structures, which have been affected by volcanic heat: in the specimens from this place, and from Port S. Julian, he finds sixteen Polygastrica and twelve Phytolitharia. Of these organisms, seven are new forms, the others being previously known: all are of marine, and chiefly of oceanic, origin. This deposit to the naked eye resembles the crust which often appears on weathered surfaces of feldspathic rocks; it likewise resembles those beds of earthy feldspathic matter, sometimes interstratified with porphyritic rocks, as is the case in this very district with the underlying purple claystone porphyry. From examining specimens under a common microscope, and comparing them with other specimens undoubtedly of volcanic origin, I had come to the same conclusion with Professor Ehrenberg, namely, that this great deposit, in its first origin, is of volcanic nature.

PORT S. JULIAN.

(FIGURE 17. SECTION OF THE STRATA EXHIBITED IN THE CLIFFS OF THE NINETY FEET PLAIN AT PORT S. JULIAN.

(Section through beds from top to bottom: A, B, C, D, E, F.))

On the south side of the harbour, Figure 17 gives the nature of the beds seen in the cliffs of the ninety feet plain. Beginning at the top:--

1st, the earthy ma.s.s (AA), including the remains of the Macrauchenia, with recent sh.e.l.ls on the surface.

Second, the porphyritic s.h.i.+ngle (B), which in its lower part is interstratified (owing, I believe, to redisposition during denudation) with the white pumiceous mudstone.

Third, this white mudstone, about twenty feet in thickness, and divided into two varieties (C and D), both closely resembling the lower, fine- grained, more unctuous and compact kind at Port Desire; and, as at that place, including much selenite.

Fourth, a fossiliferous ma.s.s, divided into three main beds, of which the uppermost is thin, and consists of ferruginous sandstone, with many sh.e.l.ls of the great oyster and Pecten Paranensis; the middle bed (E) is a yellowish earthy sandstone abounding with Scutellae; and the lowest bed (F) is an indurated, greenish, sandy clay, including large concretions of calcareous sandstone, many sh.e.l.ls of the great oyster, and in parts almost made up of fragments of Balanidae. Out of these three beds, I procured the following twelve species, of which the two first were exceedingly numerous in individuals, as were the Terebratulae and Turritellae in certain layers:--

1. Ostrea Patagonica, d'Orbigny, "Voyage, Pal." (also at St. Fe, and whole coast of Patagonia).

2. Pecten Paranensis, d'Orbigny, "Voyage, Pal." (St. Fe, S. Josef, Port Desire).

3. Pecten centralis, G.B. Sowerby (also at Port Desire and S. Cruz).

4. Pecten geminatus, G.B. Sowerby.

5. Terebratula Patagonica, G.B. Sowerby (also S. Josef).

6. Struthiolaria ornata, G.B. Sowerby (also S. Cruz).

7. Fusus Patagonicus, G.B. Sowerby.

8. Fusus Noachinus, G.B. Sowerby.

9. Scalaria rugulosa, G.B. Sowerby.

10. Turritella ambulacrum, G.B. Sowerby (also S. Cruz).

11. Pyrula, cast of, like P. ventricosa of Sowerby, Tank Cat.

12. Bala.n.u.s varians, G.B. Sowerby.

13. Scutella, differing from the species from Nuevo Gulf.

At the head of the inner harbour of Port S. Julian, the fossiliferous ma.s.s is not displayed, and the sea-cliffs from the water's edge to a height of between one and two hundred feet are formed of the white pumiceous mudstone, which here includes innumerable, far-extended, sometimes horizontal, sometimes inclined or vertical laminae of transparent gypsum, often about an inch in thickness. Further inland, with the exception of the superficial gravel, the whole thickness of the truncated hills, which represent a formerly continuous plain 950 feet in height, appears to be formed of this white mudstone: here and there, however, at various heights, thin earthy layers, containing the great oyster, Pecten Paranensis and Turritella ambulacrum, are interstratified; thus showing that the whole ma.s.s belongs to the same epoch. I nowhere found even a fragment of a sh.e.l.l actually in the white deposit, and only a single cast of a Turritella. Out of the eighteen microscopic organisms discovered by Ehrenberg in the specimens from this place, ten are common to the same deposit at Port Desire. I may add that specimens of this white mudstone, with the same identical characters were brought me from two points,--one twenty miles north of S. Julian, where a wide gravel-capped plain, 350 feet in height, is thus composed; and the other forty miles south of S. Julian, where, on the old charts, the cliffs are marked as "Chalk Hills."

SANTA CRUZ.

The gravel-capped cliffs at the mouth of the river are 355 feet in height: the lower part, to a thickness of fifty or sixty feet, consists of a more or less hardened, darkish, muddy, or argillaceous sandstone (like the lowest bed of Port Desire), containing very many sh.e.l.ls, some silicified and some converted into yellow calcareous spar. The great oyster is here numerous in layers; the Trigonocelia and Turritella are also very numerous: it is remarkable that the Pecten Paranensis, so common in all other parts of the coast, is here absent: the sh.e.l.ls consist of:--

1. Ostrea Patagonica, d'Orbigny; "Voyage Pal." (also at St. Fe and whole coast of Patagonia).

2. Pecten centralis, G.B. Sowerby (also P. Desire and S. Julian).

3. Venus meridionalis of G.B. Sowerby.

4. Cra.s.satella Lyellii, G.B. Sowerby.

5. Cardium puelchum, G.B. Sowerby.

6. Cardita Patagonica, G.B. Sowerby.

7. Mactra rugata, G.B. Sowerby.

8. Mactra Darwinii, G.B. Sowerby.

9. Cucullaea alta, G.B. Sowerby (also P. Desire).

10. Trigonocelia insolita, G.B. Sowerby.

11. Nucula (?) glabra, G.B. Sowerby.

12. Crepidula gregaria, G.B. Sowerby.

13. Voluta alta, G.B. Sowerby.

14. Trochus collaris, G.B. Sowerby.

15. Natica solida (?), G.B. Sowerby 16. Struthiolaria ornata, G.B. Sowerby (also P. Desire).

17. Turritella ambulacrum, G.B. Sowerby (also P. S. Julian).

Imperfect fragments of the genera Byssoarca, Artemis, and Fusus.

The upper part of the cliff is generally divided into three great strata, differing slightly in composition, but essentially resembling the pumiceous mudstone of the places farther north; the deposit, however, here is more arenaceous, of greater specific gravity, and not so white: it is interlaced with numerous thin veins, partially or quite filled with transverse fibres of gypsum; these fibres were too short to reach across the vein, have their extremities curved or bent: in the same veins with the gypsum, and likewise in separate veins as well as in little nests, there is much powdery sulphate of magnesia (as ascertained by Mr. Reeks) in an uncompressed form: I believe that this salt has not heretofore been found in veins. Of the three beds, the central one is the most compact, and more like ordinary sandstone: it includes numerous flattened spherical concretions, often united like a necklace, composed of hard calcareous sandstone, containing a few sh.e.l.ls: some of these concretions were four feet in diameter, and in a horizontal line nine feet apart, showing that the calcareous matter must have been drawn to the centres of attraction, from a distance of four feet and a half on both sides. In the upper and lower finer-grained strata, there were other concretions of a grey colour, containing calcareous matter, and so fine-grained and compact, as almost to resemble porcelain- rock: I have seen exactly similar concretions in a volcanic tufaceous bed in Chiloe. Although in this upper fine-grained strata, organic remains were very rare, yet I noticed a few of the great oyster; and in one included soft ferruginous layer, there were some specimens of the Cucullaea alta (found at Port Desire in the lower fossiliferous ma.s.s) and of the Mactra rugata, which latter sh.e.l.l has been partially converted into gypsum.

(FIGURE 18. SECTION OF THE PLAINS OF PATAGONIA, ON THE BANKS OF THE S.

CRUZ.

(Section through strata (from top to bottom)): Surface of plain with erratic boulders; 1,146 feet above the sea.

a. Gravel and boulders, 212 feet thick.

b. Basaltic lava, 322 feet thick.

c, d and e. Sedimentary layers, bed of small pebbles and talus respectively, total 592 feet thick.

River of S. Cruz; here 280 feet above sea.)

In ascending the valley of the S. Cruz, the upper strata of the coast- cliffs are prolonged, with nearly the same characters, for fifty miles: at about this point, they begin in the most gradual and scarcely perceptible manner, to be banded with white lines; and after ascending ten miles farther, we meet with distinct thin layers of whitish, greenish, and yellowish fine-grained, fusible sediments. At eighty miles from the coast, in a cliff thus composed, there were a few layers of ferruginous sandstone, and of an argillaceous sandstone with concretions of marl like those in the Pampas. (At this spot, for a s.p.a.ce of three-quarters of a mile along the north side of the river, and for a width of half a mile, there has been a great slip, which has formed hills between sixty and seventy feet in height, and has tilted the strata into highly inclined and even vertical positions. The strata generally dipped at an angle of 45 degrees towards the cliff from which they had slided. I have observed in slips, both on a small and large scale, that this inward dip is very general. Is it due to the hydrostatic pressure of water percolating with difficulty through the strata acting with greater force at the base of the ma.s.s than against the upper part?) At one hundred miles from the coast, that is at a central point between the Atlantic and the Cordillera, we have the section in Figure 18.

The upper half of the sedimentary ma.s.s, under the basaltic lava, consists of innumerable zones of perfectly white bright green, yellowish and brownish, fine-grained, sometimes incoherent, sedimentary matter. The white, pumiceous, trachytic tuff-like varieties are of rather greater specific gravity than the pumiceous mudstone on the coast to the north; some of the layers, especially the browner ones, are coa.r.s.er, so that the broken crystals are distinguishable with a weak lens. The layers vary in character in short distances. With the exception of a few of the Ostrea Patagonica, which appeared to have rolled down from the cliff above, no organic remains were found. The chief difference between these layers taken as a whole, and the upper beds both at the mouth of the river and on the coast northward, seems to lie in the occasional presence of more colouring matter, and in the supply having been intermittent; these characters, as we have seen, very gradually disappear in descending the valley, and this fact may perhaps be accounted for by the currents of a more open sea having blended together the sediment from a distant and intermittent source.

The coloured layers in the foregoing section rest on a ma.s.s, apparently of great thickness (but much hidden by the talus), of soft sandstone, almost composed of minute pebbles, from one-tenth to two-tenths of an inch in diameter, of the rocks (with the entire exception of the basaltic lava) composing the great boulders on the surface of the plain, and probably composing the neighbouring Cordillera. Five miles higher up the valley, and again thirty miles higher up (that is twenty miles from the nearest range of the Cordillera), the lower plain included within the upper escarpments, is formed, as seen on the banks of the river, of a nearly similar but finer-grained, more earthy, laminated sandstone, alternating with argillaceous beds, and containing numerous moderately sized pebbles of the same rocks, and some sh.e.l.ls of the great Ostrea Patagonica. (I found at both places, but not in situ, quant.i.ties of coniferous and ordinary dicotyledonous silicified wood, which was examined for me by Mr. R. Brown.) As most of these sh.e.l.ls had been rolled before being here embedded, their presence does not prove that the sandstone belongs to the great Patagonian tertiary formation, for they might have been redeposited in it, when the valley existed as a sea-strait; but as amongst the pebbles there were none of basalt, although the cliffs on both sides of the valley are composed of this rock, I believe that the sandstone does belong to this formation. At the highest point to which we ascended, twenty miles distant from the nearest slope of the Cordillera, I could see the horizontally zoned white beds, stretching under the black basaltic lava, close up to the mountains; so that the valley of the S. Cruz gives a fair idea of the const.i.tution of the whole width of Patagonia.

BASALTIC LAVA OF THE S. CRUZ.

This formation is first met with sixty-seven miles from the mouth of the river; thence it extends uninterruptedly, generally but not exclusively on the northern side of the valley, close up to the Cordillera. The basalt is generally black and fine-grained, but sometimes grey and laminated; it contains some olivine, and high up the valley much gla.s.sy feldspar, where, also, it is often amygdaloidal; it is never highly vesicular, except on the sides of rents and on the upper and lower, spherically laminated surfaces.

It is often columnar; and in one place I saw magnificent columns, each face twelve feet in width, with their interstices filled up with calcareous tuff. The streams rest conformably on the white sedimentary beds, but I nowhere saw the actual junction; nor did I anywhere see the white beds actually superimposed on the lava; but some way up the valley at the foot of the uppermost escarpments, they must be thus superimposed. Moreover, at the lowest point down the valley, where the streams thin out and terminate in irregular projections, the s.p.a.ces or intervals between these projections are filled up to the level of the now denuded and gravel-capped surfaces of the plains, with the white-zoned sedimentary beds; proving that this matter continued to be deposited after the streams had flowed. Hence we may conclude that the basalt is contemporaneous with the upper parts of the great tertiary formation.

The lava where first met with is 130 feet in thickness: it there consists of two, three, or perhaps more streams, divided from each other by vesicular spheroids like those on the surface. From the streams having, as it appears, extended to different distances, the terminal points are of unequal heights. Generally the surface of the basalt is smooth them in one part high up the valley, it was so uneven and hummocky, that until I afterwards saw the streams extending continuously on both sides of the valley up to a height of about three thousand feet close to the Cordillera, I thought that the craters of eruption were probably close at hand. This hummocky surface I believe to have been caused by the crossing and heaping up of different streams. In one place, there were several rounded ridges about twenty feet in height, some of them as broad as high, and some broader, which certainly had been formed whilst the lava was fluid, for in transverse sections each ridge was seen to be concentrically laminated, and to be composed of imperfect columns radiating from common centres, like the spokes of wheels.

The basaltic ma.s.s where first met with is, as I have said, 130 feet in thickness, and, thirty-five miles higher up the valley, it increases to 322 feet. In the first fourteen and a half miles of this distance, the upper surface of the lava, judging from three measurements taken above the level of the river (of which the apparently very uniform inclination has been calculated from its total height at a point 135 miles from the mouth), slopes towards the Atlantic at an angle of only 0 degrees 7 minutes twenty seconds: this must be considered only as an approximate measurement, but it cannot be far wrong. Taking the whole thirty-five miles, the upper surface slopes at an angle of 0 degrees 10 minutes 53 seconds; but this result is of no value in showing the inclination of any one stream, for halfway between the two points of measurement, the surface suddenly rises between one hundred and two hundred feet, apparently caused by some of the uppermost streams having extended thus far and no farther. From the measurement made at these two points, thirty-five miles apart, the mean inclination of the sedimentary beds, over which the lava has flowed, is NOW (after elevation from under the sea) only 0 degrees 7 minutes 52 seconds: for the sake of comparison, it may be mentioned that the bottom of the present sea in a line from the mouth of the S. Cruz to the Falkland Islands, from a depth of seventeen fathoms to a depth of eighty-five fathoms, declines at an angle of 0 degrees 1 minute 22 seconds; between the beach and the depth of seventeen fathoms, the slope is greater. From a point about half-way up the valley, the basaltic ma.s.s rises more abruptly towards the foot of the Cordillera, namely, from a height of 1,204 feet, to about 3,000 feet above the sea.

This great deluge of lava is worthy, in its dimensions, of the great continent to which it belongs. The aggregate streams have flowed from the Cordillera to a distance (unparalleled, I believe, in any case yet known) of about one hundred geographical miles. Near their furthest extremity their total thickness is 130 feet, which increase thirty-five miles farther inland, as we have just seen, to 322 feet. The least inclination given by M. E. de Beaumont of the upper surface of a lava-stream, namely 0 degrees 30 minutes, is that of the great subaerial eruption in 1783 from Skaptar Jukul in Iceland; and M. E. de Beaumont shows that it must have flowed down a mean inclination of less than 0 degrees 20 minutes. ("Memoires pour servir" etc. pages 178 and 217.) But we now see that under the pressure of the sea, successive streams have flowed over a smooth bottom with a mean inclination of not more than 0 degrees 7 minutes 52 seconds; and that the upper surface of the terminal portion (over a s.p.a.ce of fourteen and a half miles) has an inclination of not more than 0 degrees 7 minutes 20 seconds.