Small scale arcuate intrusions on Saint Helena, South Atlantic

Abstract

Sixteen arcuate intrusions have been emplaced at extremely high levels into the basaltic shield volcanoes of Saint Helena. These intrusions are of special interest because of their small size and modes of emplacement. The arcuate masses are of three distinctive types:

• 1) Irregular, steeply inward-dipping, basic sheets with diameters of 150 m to 450 m infill tensional fractures originating at depths of about 500 m beneath the volcano surface.

• 2) Strongly curved sheets from 25 m to 750 m in diameter are cross-sections of inclined intrusions which in three dimensions resemble single sticks of celery. These intrusions, varying from basalt to trachyte in composition, are infilled tensional fractures originating at « point » pressure sources, inclined to the horizontal, at depths of about 500 m below the surface.

• 3) Salic intrusions with near-vertical sides and gently inclined roof-infillings have outer diameters of 350 m to 1070 m. Pressure exerted onto the flanks of the volcano by domed, convex upwards, areas of a magma chamber roof, at a depth of about 2 km, caused near-vertical ring fractures to form. Formation of a sub-horizontal cross fracture and subsequent intrusion of magma produced the « roof-infillings » by updoming the overlying basalts or sinking of the enclosed block, or combinations of the two processes. Two intrusions of this third type are multiple.