Internal structure of the Buckboard Mesa basalt

Abstract

Engineering studies on Buckboard Mesa in Nevada have included extensive coring and borchole photographing in a late Cenozoic basalt flow. The basalt was evidently extruded from a fissure, now marked by a cinder cone, localized in the moat of the Timber Mountain caldera. It is an olivine-bearing andesitic basalt with a moderately high potassium content.

Away from complications near the vent only a single flow is present. Distributaries from the main channel branch to clusters of lava toes at the flow terminus. A vesicular facies overlies a dense facies in general, but alternating layers formed in an early flow stage complicate the stratigraphy.

Structures formed in a transitional stage are flattened vesicles, layers of vesicles, and lineated vesicles. These flow structures commonly parallel concentric flattened cylinders of the various rock types. The cylindrical structure is apparently fundamental to lava flow mechanics. In the brittle stage, an orthogonal system of three sets of fractures developed in the lava parallel and perpendicular to the flow layering. Similar flow channels with cylindrical flow structure and related fractures are present in Columbia River basalt and elsewhere.