Volcanic plateau

A volcanic plateau is a plateau produced by volcanic activity. There are two main types: lava plateaus and pyroclastic plateaus.

Lava plateau

Lava plateaus are formed by highly fluid mafic lava (the older term is "basic lava") during numerous successive eruptions through numerous vents without violent explosions (quiet eruptions). These eruptions are quiet because of low viscosity of mafic lava, so that it is very fluid and contains small amount of trapped gases. The resulting sheet lava flows may be extruded from linear fissures or rifts or gigantic volcanic eruptions through multiple vents characteristic of the prehistoric era which produced giant flood basalts. Multiple successive and extensive lava flows cover the original landscape to eventually form a plateau, which may contain lava fields, cinder cones, shield volcanos and other s.

Perhaps the most extensive of all the subaerial basaltic plateaus existed during the Paleogene [ [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/61005289/ABSTRACT Brittle tectonism in relation to the Palaeogene evolution of the Thulean/NE Atlantic domain: a study in Ulster] Retrieved on 2007-11-10] and possibly extended over 1,800,000 km² (700,000 km²) of the northern Atlantic Ocean region. This region, known as the Thulean Plateau, is generally believed to have been broken up by foundering of the Earth's crust to form the present ocean basin.

The Earth features numerous subaerial and submarine volcanic plateaus such as the Columbia River Plateau (subaerial) and the vast Ontong Java Plateau (submarine).

Pyroclastic plateau

Pyroclastic plateaus are produced by massive pyroclastic flows and they are underlain by pyroclastic rocks: agglomerates, tephra, volcanic ashes cemented into tuffs, mafic or felsic.

Examples include Shirasu-Daichi, which covers almost whole Southern Kyūshū, Japan, [ [http://glgarcs.lad.jp/landform_kys.html Landforms of Kuyshu] ] , and the North Island Volcanic Plateau in New Zealand.

ee also

*Lava plain

References