OCR Text |
Show METAMORPHISM OF FRAGMENTAL VOLCANIC ROCKS. 81 or impure argillite. The obliteration of all traces of granulation in this residual felsitic base is no more remarkable than it would be in an argillaceous rock. So long as a thorough crystallization of the entire mass remains impracticable for want of the requisite quantity of alkaline and earthy bases, much of the groundmass must necessarily remain amorphous; and there is no difficulty in believing that this amorphous base may take those forms and aspects (both microscopic and macroscopic) which are seen in many forms of porphyroid eruptive rocks. These rocks, however, never reveal any traces of that igneous fusion which is displayed by the basalts and augitic andesites on the one hand, and by the true rhyolites on the other. Glass inclusions, fluidal textures, fibrolites, or a spherulitic base are never found among them. This absence of all evidence of igneous action at high temperature is a significant characteristic. Hence the similarity of these metamorphic rocks does not extend to all igneous or eruptive rocks, but only to limited groups of them, such as porphyritic trachyte and several other trachytic varieties, to the propy-lites, and to some varieties of hornblendic andesite. A detailed description and study of the metamorphic tufas will be found in the portion of the chapter on the Sevier Plateau, in which the rocks of the East Fork Canon are described. 6 H p |