The oldest rocks, the gneisses and schists of the Archean period, form nearly the whole of the Central Plateau, and are also exposed in the axes of the folds in Brittany.
The lodes occur in Silurian metamorphic micaceous schists, intruded by granite, porphyry and diorite, and traversed by numerous quartz reefs, some of which are gold-bearing.
Beginning in the south-east corner of the Gold Coast colony this range, composed of quartzites and schists, extends beyond the borders of Togoland into upper Dahomey.
Alum and blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) are manufactured from decomposed schists at Khetri in Shaikhawati.
There is a foundation of schists and crystalline rocks upon which rests a series of sandstones.
Lower Cretaceous limestones and schists, with radiolarian cherts, are extensively developed; and in many parts of the island Upper Creta 1 See L.
Large ore-bodies of granular and compact magnetite occur as beds and lenticular masses in Archean gneiss and crystalline schists, in various parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Urals; as also in the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan, as well as in Canada.
Schists in the common acceptance of that term are really highly crystalline rocks; fissile slates, shales or sandstones, in which the original sedimentary structures are little modified by recrystallization, are not included in this group by English petrologists, though the French schistes and the German Schiefer are used to designate also rocks of these types.
The difference between schists and gneisses is mainly that the latter have less highly developed foliation; they also, as a rule, are more coarse grained, and contain far more quartz and felspar, two minerals which rarely assume platy or acicular forms, and hence do not lead to the production of a fissile character in the rocks in which they are important constituents.
Schists, as a rule, are found in regions composed mainly of metamorphic rocks, such as the Central Alps, Himalayas, and other mountain ranges, Saxony, Scandinavia, the Highlands of Scotland and north-west of Ireland.
The Silurian mica-schists of Bergen in Norway are fossiliferous; in the Alps it is believed that even Mesozoic rocks pass laterally into mica-schists and talc-schists.
It is often taught that gneisses are the further stages of the crystallization of schists and belong to a deeper zone where the pressures and the temperatures were greater.
Igneous rocks also may be converted readily into schists (e.g.
There are two great groups of schists, viz.
In the mica-schists of this group biotite or muscovite may be the principal mineral and often both are present in varying proportions; the mica has developed from the argillaceous matter of the original rock; in addition there is always quartz and sometimes felspar (albite or oligoclase).
The chlorite-schists are often of igneous derivation, such as ash-beds or fine lavas which have been metamorphosed.
Calc-schists are usually argillaceous limestones in which a large development of biotite or phlogopite has occasioned foliation.
The quartz-schists consist of quartz and white mica, and are intimately related to quartzites.
We may mention also graphiticschists containing dark scaly graphite (often altered forms of carbonaceous shales), and haematite-schists which may represent beds of ironstone.
The orthoschists are white mica-schists produced by the shearing of acid rocks, such as felsite and porphyry.
Some of the "porphyroids" which have grains of quartz and felspar in a finely schistose micaceous matrix are intermediate between porphyries and micaschists of this group. Still more numerous are orthoschists of hornblendic character (hornblende-schists) consisting of green hornblende with often felspar, quartz and sphene (also rutile, garnet, epidote or zoisite, biotite and iron oxides).
Every transition can be found between perfectly normal ophitic dolerites and typical hornblende-schists, and occasionally the same dike or sill will provide specimens of all the connecting stages.
Under extreme crushing these basic rocks may be converted into dark biotite-schists, or greenish chloriteschists.
Talc-schists are of the same category.
They are soft and lustrous, with a peculiarly smooth feel, and though often confounded with mica-schists may be distinguished by their richness in magnesia; many of them contain tremolite or actinolite; others have residual grains of olivine or augite; and here also every gradation can be found between the unmodified igneous types and the perfectly metamorphic schists.
In the southern region, which is by far the better known, the oldest rocks are granites, crystalline schists and other rocks of Archean aspect.
Practically all the remaining area in these islands is occupied by metamorphic schists and gneisses which occur in great variety and with which are associated numerous dikes and masses of intrusive igneous rock.
The southern part of Mainland, from Laxfirth Voe to Fitful Head a series of dark schists and slates, is found with subordinate limestones.
The metamorphic rocks of the rest of Mainland are principally coarse gneisses, micaceous and chloritic schists, quartzites, &c.; in these rocks at Tingwall and Wiesdale considerable beds of limestone occur, which may be followed across the island in a northerly direction to Yell Sound, and to Dales Voe in Delting.
In Unst the high ground on the west coast consists of gneiss, which is followed eastward by schists of various kinds, then by a belt of serpentine, 2 m.
Of schists and sandstones a number of secondary ridges radiate in all directions, forming divides between the rivers Dra'a, Sits, Um-er-Rabid, Sebia, Mulwiya and Ghir, which flow respectively to the south-west, the west, north-west, north, north-east and south-east.
Besides huge masses of old schists and sandstones, the range contains extensive limestone, marble, diorite, basalt and porphyry formations, while granite prevails on its southern slopes.
Ancient schists occur on the east coast south of Angmagssalik, and basalts and schists are found in Scoresby Fjord.
The alum schists employed in the manufacture of alum are mixtures of iron pyrites, aluminium silicate and various bituminous substances, and are found in upper Bavaria, Bohemia, Belgium and Scotland.
-) Gneisses, Schists, Marbles, Granites (Swaziland Series).
- The granites and schists occur in close associa tion.
In the Umzimkulu river and in the Tugela river below its junction with the Buffalo, metamorphic limestones are associated with schists, gneisses and granites.
The plateau is built up of granites, gneisses and crystalline schists of Archean and probably Primary age.
A broad ring of crystalline rocks (Swaziland schists) encircles the Transvaal except on the south, where the Karroo formation extends over the Vaal River.
Barberton and Swaziland Crystalline schists, quartzites, conglomSeries.
- Molengraaff considers the Barberton series to be the metamorphosed equivalent of the Hospital Hill series, while Hatch regards it to be older and to form a portion of his Archaean series (Swaziland schists) to which position it is here assigned.
They show a great variety of type made up of slates, quartzites, occasional conglomerates, schists with large masses of intrusive granites and gneiss.
The lower group (Hospital Hill slates) consists of quartzites and shales, resting on the eroded surface of the older granites and schists, and estimated to be from 10,000 to 12,000 ft.
The oldest rocks in the country are the granites, gneisses, &c., of the southern massif and the crystalline schists which form the axis of the Cordillera and the Caribbean chain.
Most of the island is occupied by the band of the old rocks, which include mica, glaucophane and sericite-schists and slates; there are small intrusions of granite, and numerous dikes and masses of basic eruptive rocks.
Lofty summits are separated by comparatively low passes, which lie at the level of crystalline rocks and schists constituting the original uplands upon which the summits have been piled by volcanic action.
They are often overlain by schists and quartzites, or broken through by volcanic masses.
Old schists, free from fossils and rich in quartz, overlie it in parallel chains through the whole length of the peninsula, especially in the central and highest ridges, and bear the ores of Chu-goku (the central provinces), principally copper pyrites and magnetic pyrites.
Farther northwards they give way again, as in the south, to schists and eruptive rocks.