This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Volcanic plateau is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
A volcanic plateau is a plateau produced by volcanic activity. There are two main types: lava plateaus and pyroclastic plateaus.
Contents |
Lava plateau
Lava plateaus are formed by highly fluid basaltic 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 volcanic landforms.
Perhaps the most extensive of all the subaerial basaltic plateaus existed during the Paleogene1 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,2, and the North Island Volcanic Plateau in New Zealand.
See also
References
- ^ Brittle tectonism in relation to the Palaeogene evolution of the Thulean/NE Atlantic domain: a study in Ulster Retrieved on 2007-11-10
- ^ Landforms of Kuyshu
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 29 November 2008, at 18:00.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Volcanic plateau".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.