Michael J. Branney

A reappraisal of ignimbrite emplacement : progressive aggradation and changes from particulate to non-particulate flow during emplacement of high-grade ignimbrite

We propose a mechanism by which massive ignimbrite and layered ignimbrite sequences — the latter liable to have been previously interpreted as multiple flow units-form by progressive aggradation during sustained passage of a single particulate flow. In the case of high-temperature eruptive products the mechanism simplifies interpretation of problematic deposits that exhibit pronounced vertical and lateral variations in texture, including between non-welded, eutaxitic, rheomorphic (lineated) and lava-like. Agglutination can occur within the basal part of a hot density-stratified flow. During initial incursion of the flow, agglutinate chills and freezes against the ground. During sustained passage of the flow, agglutination continues so that the non-particulate (agglutinate) layer thickens (aggrades) and becomes mobile, susceptible to both gravity-induced motion and traction-shear imparted by the overriding particulate part of the flow. The particulate to non-particulate (P-NP) transition occurs in and just beneath a depositional boundary layer, where disruptive collisions of hot viscous droplets give way, via sticky grain interactions, to fluidal behavior following adhesion. Because they have different rheologies, the particulate and non-particulate flow components travel at different velocities and respond to topography in different ways. This may cause detachment and formation of two independent flows. The P-NP transition is controlled by factors that influence the rheological properties of individual erupted particles (strain rate, temperature, and composition including volatiles), by cooling and volatile exsolution during transport, and by the particle-size population and concentration characteristics of the depositional boundary layer. At any one location along the flow path one or more of these can change through time (unsteady flow). Thus the P-NP transition can develop momentarily or repeatedly during the passage of an unsteady flow, or it can occur continuously during the passage of a quasi-steady flow supplied by a sustained explosive eruption. Vertical facies successions developed in the deposit (high-grade ignimbrite) reflect temporal changes in flow steadiness and in material supplied at source. The P-NP transition is also influenced by factors that affect flow behaviour, such as topography. It may occur at any location laterally between a proximal site of deflation (e.g. a fountain-fed lava) and a flows distal limit, but it most commonly occurs throughout a considerable length of the flow path. Up-sequence variations in welding-deformation fabric (between oblate uniaxial to triaxial and prolate) reflect evolving characteristics of the depositional boundary layer (e.g. fluctuations from direct suspension-sedimentation to deposition via traction carpets or traction plugs), as well as possible modifications resulting from subsequent, post-depositional hot loading and slumping. Similar processes can also account for lateral lithofacies gradations in conduits and vents filled with welded tuff. Our consideration of high-grade ignimbrites has implications for ignimbrite emplacement in general, and draws attention to the limitations of the widely accepted models of emplacement involving mainly high-concentration non-turbulent transport and en masse ‘freezing’ of high-yield-strength plug flows.

Downsag and extension at calderas: new perspectives on collapse geometries from ice-melt, mining, and volcanic subsidence

Structures at calderas may form as a result of precursory tumescence, subsidence due withdrawal of magmatic support, resurgence, and regional tectonism. Structural reactivation and overprinting are common. To explore which types of structures may derive directly from subsidence without other factors, evidence is reviewed from pits caused by the melting of buried ice blocks, mining subsidence, scaled subsidence models, and from over 50 calderas. This review suggests that complex patterns of peripheral deformation, with multiple ring and arcuate fractures both inside and outside caldera rims, topographic embayments, arcuate graben, and concentric zones of extension and compression may form as a direct result of subsidence and do not require a complex subsidence and inflation history. Downsag is a feature of many calderas and it does not indicate subsidence on an inward-dipping ring fault, as has been inferred previously. Where magmatic inflation is absent or slight, initial arcuate faults formed during collapse are likely to be multiple, and dip outwards to vertical. Associated downsag causes the peripheries of calderas undergo radial (centripetal) extension, and this accounts for some of the complex peripheral fractures, arcuate crevasses, graben, and some topographic moats. The structural boundary of a caldera, defined here as the outermost limits of subsidence and related deformation including downsag, commonly lies outside ring faults and outside the embayed topographic wall. It is likely to be funnel-shaped, i.e. inward-dipping, even though ring and arcuate fractures within it may dip outward. Inward-dipping arcuate normal faults at shallow levels and steep inward-dipping contacts between a calderas fill and walls may both occur at a caldera that has initially subsided on outward-dipping ring faults. They arise due to peripheral surficial extension, gravitational spreading and scarp collapse. Topographic enlargement at some calderas and the formation of embayments may reflect general progressive downsag and localized downsag, respectively. These processes may occur in addition to surficial degradation of oversteep ring-fault scarps.

'Snake River (SR)-type' volcanism at the Yellowstone hotspot track: Distinctive products from unusual, high-temperature silicic super-eruptions

A new category of large-scale volcanism, here termed Snake River (SR)-type volcanism, is defined with reference to a distinctive volcanic facies association displayed by Miocene rocks in the central Snake River Plain area of southern Idaho and northern Nevada, USA. The facies association contrasts with those typical of silicic volcanism elsewhere and records unusual, voluminous and particularly environmentally devastating styles of eruption that remain poorly understood. It includes: (1) large-volume, lithic-poor rhyolitic ignimbrites with scarce pumice lapilli; (2) extensive, parallel-laminated, medium to coarse-grained ashfall deposits with large cuspate shards, crystals and a paucity of pumice lapilli; many are fused to black vitrophyre; (3) unusually extensive, large-volume rhyolite lavas; (4) unusually intense welding, rheomorphism, and widespread development of lava-like facies in the ignimbrites; (5) extensive, fines-rich ash deposits with abundant ash aggregates (pellets and accretionary lapilli); (6) the ashfall layers and ignimbrites contain abundant clasts of dense obsidian and vitrophyre; (7) a bimodal association between the rhyolitic rocks and numerous, coalescing low-profile basalt lava shields; and (8) widespread evidence of emplacement in lacustrine-alluvial environments, as revealed by intercalated lake sediments, ignimbrite peperites, rhyolitic and basaltic hyaloclastites, basalt pillow-lava deltas, rhyolitic and basaltic phreatomagmatic tuffs, alluvial sands and palaeosols. Many rhyolitic eruptions were high mass-flux, large volume and explosive (VEI 6–8), and involved H2O-poor, low-δ18O, metaluminous rhyolite magmas with unusually low viscosities, partly due to high magmatic temperatures (900–1,050°C). SR-type volcanism contrasts with silicic volcanism at many other volcanic fields, where the fall deposits are typically Plinian with pumice lapilli, the ignimbrites are low to medium grade (non-welded to eutaxitic) with abundant pumice lapilli or fiamme, and the rhyolite extrusions are small volume silicic domes and coulées. SR-type volcanism seems to have occurred at numerous times in Earth history, because elements of the facies association occur within some other volcanic fields, including Trans-Pecos Texas, Etendeka-Paraná, Lebombo, the English Lake District, the Proterozoic Keewanawan volcanics of Minnesota and the Yardea Dacite of Australia.

Origin of accretionary lapilli within ground-hugging density currents: Evidence from pyroclastic couplets on Tenerife

Aggregation of airborne particles is an important way in which the atmosphere is cleansed of fine dust particles, such as following explosive eruptions and meteorite impacts. We identify successive stages in the growth history of particle aggregates based upon well-preserved ash aggregate–bearing pyroclastic layers on Tenerife. The layers are persistently organized into couplets made up of a lower ignimbrite layer and an upper, widespread coignimbrite ash-fall layer. The upper part of each ignimbrite contains whole and fragmented concentric-laminated accretionary lapilli, whereas the overlying coignimbrite ash-fall layer lacks accretionary lapilli and is composed of framework-supported smaller and nonlaminated ash pellets, sometimes slightly deformed or partly disaggregated. The pellets resemble the cores of the larger accretionary lapilli in the underlying ignimbrite layer. These field relations are repeated numerous times in several different successions, and they indicate that ash pellets, not accretionary lapilli, form within the coignimbrite ash plumes. Some pellets fell directly to the ground, producing coignimbrite ash-fall layers, but others settled into pyroclastic density currents, where they accreted successive concentric laminations of fine ash as they circulated through the variously turbulent levels of the stratified current, and heat of the lower part of the current dried and partly lithified them into brittle accretionary lapilli. The fully formed whole and broken accretionary lapilli were then deposited from the current along with ash and pumice lapilli. Numerous ignimbrite veneers on Tenerife have the form of ash layers, a few centimeters thick, that drape topography and locally contain matrix-supported accretionary lapilli. Most volcanoes lack laterally continuous field exposure, and such accretionary lapilli–bearing layers might be mistaken for ash-fall deposits. We highlight the value of careful distinction between different types of ash aggregate facies when interpreting the origin of pyroclastic deposits, for example, during hazard assessments.

Giant bed from a sustained catastrophic density current flowing over topography: Acatlán ignimbrite, Mexico

A giant bed of ash and pumice (≤ 80 m thick and covering >300 km 2 ) in central Mexico demonstrates that thick clastic beds lacking sedimentary structures can aggrade incrementally from the base of sustained density currents. Like similar giant beds with matrix-supported clasts elsewhere, it had been interpreted as having formed en masse from a giant flow with high yield strength. However, intergradational compositional zones within the bed record changes in the material supplied at the source over time; the zones show that the density current was initially topographically restricted and that valleys progressively filled with deposit so that later parts of same density current were able to pass over and bury successively higher ground. This example provides a key to understanding the origin of massive parts of ignimbrites, megaturbidites, lahar deposits, and some debris-flow deposits. It shows that (1) an absence of sedimentary structures cannot be used to infer near-instantaneous deposition by en masse “freezing” or “collapse” of a giant flow, and (2) the thickness and vertical organization of a giant bed tell us little about thickness, vertical organization, and rheology of the current that produced it.

The Quaternary pyroclastic succession of southeast Tenerife, Canary Islands: explosive eruptions, related caldera subsidence, and sector collapse

A much-revised Quaternary stratigraphy is presented for ignimbrites and pumice fall deposits of the Bandas del Sur, in southern Tenerife. New Ar-41/Ar-39 data obtained for the Arico, Granadilla, Fasnia, Poris, La Caleta and Abrigo formations are presented, allowing correlation with previously dated offshore marine ashfall layers and volcaniclastic sediments. We also provide a minimum age of 287 +/- 7 ka for a major sector collapse event at the Gaimar valley. The Bandas del Sur succession includes more than seven widespread ignimbrite sheets that have similar characteristics, including widespread basal Plinian layers, predominantly phonolite composition, ignimbrites with similar extensive geographic distributions, thin condensed veneers with abundant diffuse bedding and complex lateral and vertical grading patterns, lateral gradations into localized massive facies within palaeo-wadis, and widespread lithic breccia layers that probably record caldera-forming eruptions. Each ignimbrite sheet records substantial bypassing of pyroclastic material into the ocean. The succession indicates that Las Canadas volcano underwent a series of major explosive eruptions, each starting with a Plinian phase followed by emplacement of ignimbrites and thin ash layers, some of coignimbrite origin. Several of the ignimbrite sheets are compositionally zoned and contain subordinate mafic pumices and banded pumices indicative of magma mingling immediately prior to eruption. Because passage of each pyroclastic density current was characterized by phases of non-deposition and erosion, the entire course of each eruption is incompletely recorded at any one location, accounting for some previously perceived differences between the units. Because each current passed into the ocean, estimating eruption volumes is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, the consistent widespread distributions and the presence of lithic breccias within most of the ignimbrite sheets suggest that at least seven caldera collapse eruptions are recorded in the Bandas del Sur succession and probably formed a complex, nested collapse structure. Detailed field relationships show that extensive ignimbrite sheets (e.g. the Arico, Poris and La Caleta formations) relate to previously unrecognized caldera collapse events. We envisage that the evolution of the nested Las Cahadas caldera is more complex than previously thought and involved a protracted history of successive ignimbrite-related caldera collapse events, and large sector collapse events, interspersed with edifice-building phases.

Emplacement and rheomorphic deformation of a large, lava-like rhyolitic ignimbrite: Grey's Landing, southern Idaho

The Miocene Grey9s Landing ignimbrite reaches 70 m thick and covers at least 400 km 2 in the central region of the Snake River Plain. It shows particularly intense welding and rheomorphic deformation, and although parts are eutaxitic, most is lava-like with flow-banding and no fiamme. A near-ubiquitous penetrative flow lamination, associated with a well-developed elongation lineation, is folded into small intrafolial tight to isoclinal oblique and sheath folds, which are refolded by larger folds in the upper parts. Structural and kinematic analysis reveals that welding and early deformation occurred rapidly during deposition from a very hot (≤1000 °C), high-mass-flux pyroclastic density current that flowed westward across a graben-faulted landscape. As hot particles were deposited, they rapidly agglutinated and coalesced, and underwent noncoaxial shear in a subhorizontal ductile shear zone close to the current-deposit interface. The shear zone is interpreted to have been less than 2 m thick. It produced and deformed the rheomorphic fabric, and it migrated upward with the rising current-deposit interface during aggradation, so that it transiently affected all levels of the resultant thick ignimbrite. Deformation was progressive, and after the density current had dissipated, viscous spreading and downslope flow continued and involved an increasingly thick portion of the sheet. This folded the flow banding and F 1 intrafolial isoclines into larger sheath folds, and into more upright periclines near the top of the ignimbrite. We demonstrate that structural and kinematic analysis can elucidate the emplacement history of rheomorphic ignimbrites.

Ordovician volcano-tectonics in the English Lake District

Although the major late Caledonian (Acadian) deformation of the British slate belts south of the Iapetus suture took place in early Devonian time, two intra-Ordovician unconformities are present in the Lower Palaeozoic succession of NW England which have been interpreted as due to regional compressional events. These unconformities are at the base and top of the Caradocian Borrowdale Volcanic Group (BVG) and have been associated respectively with a pre-BVG orogenic cycle affecting the early Ordovician Skiddaw Group (SG) and with ‘pre-Bala’ folding of the BVG. A problem has been that no consistent sets of minor structures attributable to these deformations have been demonstrated in the Skiddaw Group. Recent advances in understanding of the volcanic history of the Lake District lead to a radical reinterpretation of the significance of these two unconformities. In the ‘pre-Bala’ (intra-Caradocian) deformation of the BVG, flexuring is now seen to be much less important than volcano-tectonic faulting and block tilting associated with caldera collapse and the eruption of voluminous ash flows in the upper part of the pile. Foundering of the volcanic edifice accounts for the preservation of this thick subaerial sequence beneath the overstepping late Ordovician marine deposits. More tentatively, we suggest that the unconformity beneath the Borrowdale Volcanic Group reflects regional uplift due to buoyancy effects associated with the generation of andesitic melt by Iapetus subduction and its rise through the over-riding wedge of continental lithosphere; several such mechanisms have been proposed to account for the topographic elevation of present day continental margin magmatic arcs. The new model removes the evidence for Ordovician N–S regional compression from the geological record of NW England and this has geotectonic implications: the evidence for late Ordovician collision is weakened and the direction of Iapetus subduction beneath southern Britain may not have been southward.

The emplacement history of a remarkable heterogeneous, chemically zoned, rheomorphic and locally lava-like ignimbrite: ‘TL’ on Gran Canaria

Abstract Ignimbrite ‘TL’ on Gran Canaria is a complex, compositionally zoned rheomorphic tuff, that locally exhibits features previously considered to be diagnostic of lavas. It is made up of two locally overlapping lobes of ignimbrite that were emplaced during a single eruptive episode. The eastern lobe is high-grade, with rheomorphic zones and localised patches that are lava-like. The western lobe is extremely high-grade, more extensively lava-like, and welded to its top surface. Both parts are zoned, with a basal comendite-rich zone grading up, through a mixed zone, into an upper trachyte-rich zone. Lithic contents, and the relative proportions of comendite and trachyte pyroclasts vary with height. Each comendite-rich zone is vitroclastic, whereas each trachyte-rich zone is partly lava-like with local gradations into vitroclastic ignimbrite. Mixed zones are intermediate in character, and locally show compositional banding. Gradational zoning in massive ignimbrite, best seen in lower strain zones, and welding fabrics that are pervasively lineated and oblique to bedding, suggest that deposition was sustained, agglutination was rapid, and rheomorphic deformation began during the sustained deposition. The viscosity and porosity of the agglutinate varied with height because successively deposited pyroclast populations varied in grainsize, composition and temperature. The hot agglutinate continued to compact and shear downslope after the density currents had dissipated, causing further rheomorphic folding, thrusting, attenuation and autobrecciation. The western lobe locally overlies the partly welded top of the eastern lobe, in part because it advanced rheomorphically across it for at least 300 m. Hot-state loading and auto-intrusion occurred due to unstable density layering in the chemically zoned agglutinate. Deformation behaviour changed during cooling and degassing, and because of heat transfer between juxtaposed agglutinates, and localised retention of dissolved volatiles where there was an overlying impermeable cap.

Fiamme formed by diagenesis and burial-compaction in soils and subaqeuous sediments

Pumice clasts can be diagenetically altered at low temperature and flattened by compaction to form fiamme. Examples are described from trachytic pumice fall layers alternating with palaeosoils on Sao Miguel in the Azores and from Ordovician lacustrine volcaniclastic sedimentary rocks from the English Lake District.