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Processes |
Department of Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, U.S.A.
The type, relative abundance and stratigraphical relationships of volcanic rocks that comprise island volcanoes are a function of (i) depth of extrusion beneath water, (ii) magma composition, and (iii) lava-water interactions. The water depth at which explosions can occur is called the pressure compensation level (PCL) and is variable. Explosive eruptions that occur above the PCL and below sealevel can give rise to abundant hydroclastic and pyroclastic debris. Below the PCL, clastic material cannot form explosively; it forms from lava by thermal shock. The volcaniclastic products are widely dispersed in basins adjacent to extrusion sources by three principal kinds of marine transport processes. These are slides, sediment gravity flows and suspension fallout. Volcaniclastic debris can be derived in subaqueous and subaerial-to-subaqueous environments (i) directly from eruptions, (ii) from remobilization of juvenile volcaniclastics, or (iii) from epiclastic material which initially develops above sealevel.
Sediment gravity flows (fluids driven by sediment motion) exhibit the phenomenon of flow transformation. This term is used here for the process by which (i) sediment gravity flow behaviour changes from turbulent to laminar, or vice versa, within the body of a flow, (ii) flows separate into laminar and turbulent parts by gravity, and (iii) flows separate by turbulent mixing with ambient fluid into turbulent and laminar parts. Dominant kinds of subaqueous volcaniclastic sediment gravity flows are debris flows, hot or cold pyroclastic flows and turbidites. Fine grained material can be thrown into suspension locally during flow transformations or underwater eruptions, but thin, regionally distributed subaqueous fallout tephra is mostly derived from siliceous Plinian eruptions.
