Geology, Vol. 1 [of 3]

by Thomas C. Chamberlin; Rollin D. Salisbury

THE NATURE OF MOLTEN MAGMAS.

We easily fall into the habit of thinking of molten rock as we think of a molten metal, merely as a substance which has passed from the solid to the liquid condition because of high temperature. With the return of low temperature a molten metal returns to the solid state usually in the same molecular condition which it possessed before. The point of fusion and the point of solidification are the same and are rigidly fixed. If this were true of the constituents of a rock, a definite order for the solidification of the several minerals might be anticipated. As a matter of fact, the order is not the same under all conditions, and, what is especially significant, the order is far from being that in which the constituents would fuse or would solidify separately. For instance, in a granite composed chiefly of quartz, feldspar, and mica, the quartz is often the last to take form, although it is more infusible than the feldspar or the mica. This and other phenomena show that a molten magma is not to be viewed simply as a fused substance, but rather as a solution of one silicate in another, or as a solution of several silicates in one another mutually. The high temperature is to be regarded merely as a condition prerequisite to solution, or as the condition of fusion of some one constituent which then dissolves the others. If crystals of snow, sugar, and salt be mixed at a low temperature and compacted, the mass may be regarded as an artificial rock. On raising the temperature, all will pass into solution while the temperature is still somewhat below the melting-point of the snow, the most fusible, and while it is much below that of either the sugar or the salt. This particular case is instructive because the ice is not simply fused by temperature; the affinity of the salt plays a part. If the temperature were again lowered, the sugar and salt would not crystallize out at their fusing-points, but would remain in solution down to and even below the normal freezing-point of water; in other words, they would remain in solution until the water crystallized out and forced them to take the solid state. This holds good when the amounts of the sugar and salt are small relative to the water. If, on the contrary, their quantity is large relatively, crystallization will take place at higher temperatures and before the water crystallizes to ice. From this it appears that the salt and sugar might crystallize either before the water or after it, according to the degree of concentration. The behavior of mixtures of minerals in passing into and out of the molten condition appears to be quite analogous to this, and hence a great variety of results attend the process, dependent upon the number, the nature, and the relative quantities of the ingredients. The approved conception of the genesis of a rock from a molten magma (when ample time is given) is that one compound after another crystallizes out as the temperature falls and its point of saturation for each is reached, until the whole has been solidified. The modes of combination of the elements in the molten magma are not necessarily the same as those in the derivative crystals; indeed, the combinations doubtless change as the process proceeds; certain constituents being taken out, the remaining ones probably rearrange themselves.

Time required in crystallization.—The liquid magma of igneous rocks is essentially a fluid glass or slag. It is analogous to common glass, which is a silicate of potash, soda, or other base, except that usually common glass is relatively free from iron and other coloring substances, while these abound in the natural magmas and render them dark and more or less opaque; but the fundamental nature is the same, except that the natural lavas are usually mixtures of several silicates, while the artificial glasses consist of only one, or at most a few. Furnace slag is essentially an artificial lava.

When a lava is cooled quickly, the commingled silicates solidify in the diffused condition essentially as they were in the liquid; for there is no time for the silicate molecules of a like kind to come together, particle by particle, in regular systematic order, as required in crystallization. The essential feature of crystallization is this systematic arrangement of the molecules according to a definite plan, giving a specific crystal form, as a cube, a hexagonal prism, etc.

There are six (sometimes made seven) fundamental systems of crystallization, and a multitude of variations of special form in each system. The treatment of these forms belongs to mineralogy.

In a thick viscid liquid, this systematic arrangement of molecules into definite crystal forms takes place slowly, for the crystalline force in the silicates is far less energetic than that in water, which crystallizes into ice with much rapidity and with great force. Because of this slowness, the solidification of the lava may catch the process of crystallization at any stage. If the lava is cooled quickly, the result is a glass; if less quickly, part glass and part crystals; if slowly enough, all becomes crystalline. In general the slower the growth the larger the crystals. The solidification product may, therefore, range from a glass to a mass of crystals; i.e., it may be (1) wholly glass, (2) a glassy matrix with a few small crystals scattered through it, (3) a less abundant glassy matrix with more and larger crystals, (4) a mere remnant of glass in a mass of crystals, or (5) a mass of crystals with no glass.

Successive stages of crystallization.—Since eruptions take place intermittently, it is obvious that cooling of the lava may be in progress in its hidden reservoir during the quiescent intervals between eruptions. After a certain stage of partial crystallization has been reached during such time of quiet, a renewal of eruption may take place and the whole mass of lava be shifted into quite new conditions, and a second phase of solidification may be superposed on the one already started. The rock will then show two phases of crystallization: (1) large crystals of the kind or kinds most prone to develop in the given lava may have grown during the first long stage of slow subterranean cooling, while the greater part of the lava still remained liquid; and (2) small crystals or glass may have developed when the more rapid cooling under the new conditions took place. The result would be large crystals set in a matrix of small crystals or of glass, a combination styled porphyritic. In such cases the lava, in its later stages, carries the large crystals floating throughout its mass, and is not a simple liquid.