On Points of Similarity between Zeolitic and Siliceous Incrustations of recent Formation by Thermal Springs, and those observed in Amygdaloids and other altered Volcanic Rocks

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The production of zeolitic minerals by the agency of thermal waters is not, as might at first sight have been supposed, a merely accidental circumstance confined to a particular locality, but appears to be tolerably general in many places—and is therefore of particular interest, not merely as illustrating the changes that have gone on at the springs themselves, but as furnishing a clue to the origin of many of the components of erupted rocks, and more especially of altered volcanic rocks. I. Zeolites and allied minerals produced by Thermal Springs . The locality where these minerals were first observed as deposits from hot springs is Plombières* (Vosges); and subsequently I have discovered them under similar conditions in Roman masonry at Luxeuil† (Haute-Saône), at Bourbonne (Haute-Marne), and in the neighbourhood of 0ran in Algeria. At all these places the mouths of the thermal springs, when first utilized for baths during the Roman occupation, were surrounded by works in concrete formed of fragments of brick and stone, both sandstone and limestone, united by lime mortar. When, in the progress of recent works, it became necessary to cut into these masses of ancient masonry, it has been found that certain portions of them have, under the action of the mineral-water, undergone changes of a very remarkable kind, both in a chemical and mineralogical point of view, and of the following character‡. In the vesicular cavities of the bricks new minerals are prominently developed, being principally zeolites, among the most abundant of which is chabasite

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: