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Unbedded diatreme deposits reveal maar-diatreme-forming eruptive processes: Standing Rocks West, Hopi Buttes, Navajo Nation, USA

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Abstract

Diatremes provide partial records of how dyke-delivered magma, periodically interacting with water, produces the largest known cylindrical conduit structures of any volcano type. We address how pre-eruptive country rock is disrupted and redistributed to form the diatreme structure during an eruption by establishing the internal architecture of the unbedded diatreme at Standing Rocks West, and the volumes and sources of wall-rock within the diatreme and in a complementary tephra ring at Teshim, both in the Hopi Buttes volcanic field. The unbedded diatreme is dominantly exposed as a massif comprising multiple subvertical columns, interpreted as ephemeral-conduit deposits of well-mixed, poorly sorted, composite and juvenile pyroclast-rich deposits that truncate marginal layered deposits, plus a peripheral heterolithic country rock breccia. Wall-rock clasts are scarce in the massif and were mainly sourced from ~75 to 245 m depth below the paleosurface. By contrast, the tephra ring has abundant wall-rock fragments, dominantly from the upper 75 m of the pre-eruptive sedimentary sequence. The diatreme structure is interpreted to have been formed by many small-volume explosions fed by a low flux of basaltic magma. Late stage explosive activity was rooted mostly within pyroclastic debris at shallow to intermediate depths within the diatreme structure. This resulted in damped and shifting intra-diatreme explosions and jets that facilitated gradual mixing, recycling and remobilization of debris in the diatreme, with incremental addition of juvenile material and possibly a local rise in the crater floor.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge M. Jutzeler for his guidance and use of his image analysis Excel spreadsheets, and A. Proussevitch for processing the data using his statistical functional stereology software. We thank B. Lefebvre for invaluable field assistance, P-S Ross, R. Brown and S. Moss for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and G. Valentine, B. Brand and an anonymous reviewer for constructive feedback on this version. This work was supported by a Society of Economic Geologists Student Grant, Sigma Delta Epsilon Graduate Women in Science Fellowship, Commonwealth PhD Scholarship to N. Lefebvre and GNS Science funding to J.D.L. White. Field work on the Navajo Nation was conducted under a permit from the Navajo Nation Minerals Department. Any persons wishing to conduct geological investigations on the Navajo Nation must first apply for, and receive, a permit from the Navajo Nation Minerals Department, P.O. Box 1910, Window Rock, Arizona 86515, USA telephone: 01 (928) 871–6587.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of Otago, 360 Leith Walk, Dunedin, Otago, 9054, New Zealand

    N. S. Lefebvre & J. D. L. White

  2. Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0E8, Canada

    B. A. Kjarsgaard

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  1. N. S. Lefebvre
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  2. J. D. L. White
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Correspondence to N. S. Lefebvre.

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Editorial responsibility: S. Self acted as Associate Editor and Executive Editor for this paper

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Lefebvre, N.S., White, J.D.L. & Kjarsgaard, B.A. Unbedded diatreme deposits reveal maar-diatreme-forming eruptive processes: Standing Rocks West, Hopi Buttes, Navajo Nation, USA. Bull Volcanol 75, 739 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-013-0739-9

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