Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univers).pdf/182
head of Sunlight Basin, about fifteen miles south of the Crandall center.
The center toward which the Crandall dikes converge is a large body of granular gabbro, grading into diorite. It is about a mile wide, and consists of numerous intrusions penetrating one another and extending out into the surrounding breccia, which is highly indurated and metamorphosed in the immediate vicinity of the core. Within the area of indurated breccia the dike rocks become coarse grained rapidly as they approach the gabbro core. This was undoubtedly the central conduit of an ancient volcano, the upper portion of which has been eroded away.
Upon comparing the geological structure of this region with that of an active volcano, like Etna, it is apparent that the lava flows which form the summits of the outlying peaks must have been derived from lateral cones fed by dikes radiating from the central conduit. And assuming that the volcano of Crandall Basin was similar in type to that of Etna, an idea of its original proportions is derived by constructing upon profile sections through the Crandall cone the outline of Etna. If the erosion of the summits of the highest peaks is neglected, the resulting height of the ancient volcano above the limestone floor is estimated at about thirteen thousand four hundred feet. This is undoubtedly too low, and is well within the limits of present active volcanoes. Erosion has removed at least ten thousand feet from the summit of the mountain to the top of the high central ridge in which the granular core is situated, and has cut four thousand feet deeper into the valleys on either side. It has prepared for study a dissected volcano, which, it is hoped, will in time reveal some of the obscurer relationships existing between various phases of igneous rocks.
Petrological Features.—It will not be possible in an abstract to do more than present, in the briefest manner, the more salient features of the petrology of the rocks of this volcano. The rocks are mostly the same as those in various parts of the Yellowstone National Park, some of which have been described in another place. The older acidic breccia consists of fragments