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III.—The Origin of Cretaceous Flint

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

W. Alfred Richardson
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Extract

It will be recalled that to the list of theories relating to the origin of flint Liesegang has added another, namely, that the flint is due to the rhythmic precipitation of a silica solution diffusing through the Chalk. Cole in an admirable essay has made this view accessible to English readers, and at the same time somewhat expanded the original suggestion. Yet little by way of evidence is offered beyond a certain plausibility in the idea, and its undoubted competence to explain better than any other hypothesis yet suggested the remarkably regular recurrence of flint lines. When reading over the chief Cretaceous literature with this problem in mind, there seemed to me to be a not inconsiderable body of fact lending support to this view. Accordingly the object of this paper is to examine existing data in the light of Liesegang's suggestion in order to see whether or not it may be regarded as a reasonable working hypothesis.

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Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 6 , Issue 12 , December 1919, pp. 535 - 547
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1919

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References

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page 537 note 1 In what follows numerical data relating to the Chalk, unless otherwise stated, have been obtained from Jukes-Browne, A. J., Cretaceous Rocks of Britain, Mem. Geol. Surv.; and from the papers on the White Chalk of the English Coast in the Proc. Geol. Assoc. (1899–1903), by Rowe, A. R. and Sherborn, C. D..Google Scholar

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