Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T19:51:32.331Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

III.—Picrite from the Ampwihi River, Mozambique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Extract

Almost due west of Mozambique Island, at a distance of about forty-two miles from the sea, the military road from Mosuril to Nampula crosses the Ampwihi River, an important tributary of the Monapo. During the dry season the stream is reduced to a string of stagnant pools, separated by long reaches of sand and gravel that here and there are interrupted by outcrops of the underlying formations. Throughout the greater part of its course the Ampwihi flows through a region in which gneisses persist with monotonous regularity, the only variation being that due to occasional intrusions of granite and of still later pegmatite dykes. At the point where the military road crosses the narrow channel a welcome diversion is introduced by the presence of a dark compact dyke about 10 feet in thickness. The dyke appears on the right-hand bank and crosses obliquely to the other side, taking a N.N.W.–S.S.E. course across the strike of the older rocks. Upstream, about seventy yards to the south-east, the Ampwihi bends to the south-west, so that it returns towards the dyke, which is again exposed across its sandy floor. The dyke was traced by Mr. E. J. Wayland in July, 1911, for a distance of altogether 200 yards, and was examined by Mr. D. Alex. Wray and later by myself during the same year. It is clearly the latest rock of the district, and is intruded along a line of fault, for in two cases pegmatite dykes seen on the eastern side are broken across and reappear on the western side with a well-marked northerly displacement.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1917

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 150 note 1 Marsh, O. C., op. cit., p. 206Google Scholar.

page 150 note 2 See Holmes, A. & Wray, D. A., “Mozambique: a Geographical Study”: Geog. Journ., p. 143, 08 1913 (Map, p. 112).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 151 note 1 See Elsden, J. V., Q.J.G.S., vol. lxiv, p. 287, 1908Google Scholar.

page 152 note 1 See Iddings, , Rock Minerals, 2nd ed., fig. 28, p. 215, 1911Google Scholar.

page 152 note 2 See Douglas, J. A., Q.J.G.S., vol. lxiii, p. 153, 1907, for relations between refractive indices and specific gravities of glasses.Google Scholar

page 153 note 1 Cross, W., Prof. Paper 88, U.S.G.S., 1916, pp. 44, 77. The mineralogical composition of the Puna lava of 1840 is almost identical with that of the Ampwihi picrite.Google Scholar

page 153 note 2 Washington, H. S., Trans. Ann. Inst. Min. Eng., xxxix, p. 735, 1908Google Scholar.

page 153 note 3 Goodchild, W. H., “Economic Geology of the Insizwa Range”: Inst. Min. and Met. (read 12 21, 1916).Google Scholar

page 154 note 1 Zealley, A. E. V., Trans. Roy. Soc. S.A., p. 14, 1915Google Scholar.

page 154 note 2 See Harker, A., Natural History of Igneous Rocks, p. 373, 1909Google Scholar.

page 155 note 1 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., p. 574, 1915Google Scholar.

page 155 note 2 Holmes, A., Science Progress, 1914, No. 33, p. 16Google Scholar.

page 155 note 3 Strutt, R. J., Proc. Roy. Soc., 1906, A. 77, p. 479Google Scholar.

page 156 note 1 Andersen, Olaf, Amer. Journ. Sci., xxxix, p. 407, 1915 (see in particular figs. 9 and 11 and table viii).CrossRefGoogle Scholar