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Control of early-formed vesicle cylinders on upper crustal prismatic jointing in compound pāhoehoe lavas of Elephanta Island, western Deccan Traps, India

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Abstract

Upper crustal prismatic joints and vesicle cylinders, common in pāhoehoe lava flows, form early and late, respectively, and are therefore independent features. However, small-scale compound pāhoehoe lava lobes on Elephanta Island (western Deccan Traps, India), which resemble S-type (spongy) pāhoehoe in some aspects, contain vesicle cylinders which apparently controlled the locations of upper crustal prismatic joints. The lobes are decimeters thick, did not experience inflation after emplacement, and solidified rapidly. They have meter-scale areas that are exceptionally rich in vesicle cylinders (up to 68 cylinders in 1 m2, with a mean spacing of 12.1 cm), separated by cylinder-free areas, and pervasive upper crustal prismatic jointing with T, curved T, and quadruple joint intersections. A majority (≥76.5%) of the cylinders are located exactly on joints or at joint intersections, and were not simply captured by downward growing joints, as the cylinders show no deflection in vertical section. We suggest that large numbers of cylinders originated in a layer of bubble-rich residual liquid at the top of a basal diktytaxitic crystal mush zone which was formed very early (probably within the first few minutes of the emplacement history). The locations where the rising cylinders breached the crust provided weak points or mechanical flaws towards which any existing joints (formed by thermal contraction) propagated. New joints may also have propagated outwards from the cylinders and linked up laterally. Some cylinders breached the crust between the joints, and thus formed a little later than most others. The Elephanta Island example reveals that, whereas thermal contraction is undoubtedly valid as a standard mechanism for forming upper crustal prismatic joints, abundant mechanical flaws (such as large concentrations of early-formed, crust-breaching vesicle cylinders) can also control the joint formation process.

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Acknowledgements

Vanit Patel was supported by a Junior Research Fellowship from the University Grants Commission (UGC), Government of India. We thank Joseph D’Souza and Arnav Samant for their valuable field assistance and Raymond Duraiswami for the discussions of some outcrop photographs during an early stage of development of our ideas. The manuscript was considerably improved by constructively critical reviews from journal referees Carla Barreto and Peter E. Marshall and Editors Richard J. Brown and Andrew Harris.

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Hetu Sheth & Vanit Patel

  2. Department of Geology, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, 400001, India

    Hrishikesh Samant

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  1. Hetu Sheth
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  2. Vanit Patel
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  3. Hrishikesh Samant
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Correspondence to Hetu Sheth.

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Sheth, H., Patel, V. & Samant, H. Control of early-formed vesicle cylinders on upper crustal prismatic jointing in compound pāhoehoe lavas of Elephanta Island, western Deccan Traps, India. Bull Volcanol 79, 63 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-017-1147-3

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