Chapter 8

NORTHERN CHILE. CONCLUSION.

Section from Illapel to Combarbala; gypseous formation with silicified wood.
Panuncillo.
Coquimbo; mines of Arqueros; section up valley; fossils.
Guasco, fossils of.
Copiapo, section up valley; Las Amolanas, silicified wood.
Conglomerates, nature of former land, fossils, thickness of strata, great subsidence.
Valley of Despoblado, fossils, tufaceous deposit, complicated dislocations of.
Relations between ancient orifices of eruption and subsequent axes of injection.
Iquique, Peru, fossils of, salt-deposits.
Metalliferous veins.
Summary on the porphyritic conglomerate and gypseous formations.
Great subsidence with partial elevations during the cretaceo-oolitic period.
On the elevation and structure of the Cordillera.
Recapitulation on the tertiary series.
Relation between movements of subsidence and volcanic action.
Pampean formation.
Recent elevatory movements.
Long-continued volcanic action in the Cordillera.
Conclusion.

VALPARAISO TO COQUIMBO.

I have already described the general nature of the rocks in the low country north of Valparaiso, consisting of granites, syenites, greenstones, and altered feldspathic clay-slate. Near Coquimbo there is much hornblendic rock and various dusky-coloured porphyries. I will describe only one section in this district, namely, from near Illapel in a N.E. line to the mines of Los Hornos, and thence in a north by east direction to Combarbala, at the foot of the main Cordillera.

Near Illapel, after passing for some distance over granite, andesite, and andesitic porphyry, we come to a greenish stratified feldspathic rock, which I believe is altered clay-slate, conformably capped by porphyries and porphyritic conglomerate of great thickness, dipping at an average angle of 20 degrees to N.E. by N. The uppermost beds consist of conglomerates and sandstone only a little metamorphosed, and conformably covered by a gypseous formation of very great thickness, but much denuded. This gypseous formation, where first met with, lies in a broad valley or basin, a little southward of the mines of Los Hornos: the lower half alone contains gypsum, not in great masses as in the Cordillera, but in innumerable thin layers, seldom more than an inch or two in thickness. The gypsum is either opaque or transparent, and is associated with carbonate of lime. The layers alternate with numerous varying ones of a calcareous clay-shale (with strong aluminous odour, adhering to the tongue, easily fusible into a pale green glass), more or less indurated, either earthy and cream-coloured, or greenish and hard. The more indurated varieties have a compact, homogeneous, almost crystalline fracture, and contain granules of crystallised oxide of iron. Some of the varieties almost resemble honestones. There is also a little black, hardly fusible, siliceo- calcareous