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Analogue models of caldera collapse in strike-slip tectonic regimes

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Abstract

Regional-scale faulting, particularly in strike-slip tectonic regimes, is a relatively poorly constrained factor in the formation of caldera volcanoes. To examine interactions between structures associated with regional-tectonic strike-slip deformation and volcano-tectonic caldera subsidence, we made scaled analogue models. Tabular (sill-like) inclusions of creamed honey in a sand/gypsum mix replicated shallow-level granitic magma chambers in the brittle upper crust. Lateral motion of a base plate sited below half the sand/gypsum pack allowed simulation of regional strike-slip deformation. Our experiments modelled: (1) strike-slip deformation of a homogeneous brittle medium; (2) strike-slip deformation of a brittle medium containing a passive magma reservoir; (3) caldera collapse into sill-like magma reservoirs without regional strike-slip deformation; and (4) caldera collapse into sill-like magma reservoirs after regional strike-slip deformation. Our results show that whilst the magma chamber shape principally influences the development and geometry of volcano-tectonic collapse structures, regional-tectonic strike-slip faults (Riedel shears and Y-shears) may affect a caldera’s structural evolution in two main ways. Firstly, regional strike-slip faults above the magma chamber may form a pre-collapse structural grain that is exploited and reactivated during subsidence. Our experiments show that such faults may preferentially reactivate where tangential to the collapse area and coincident with the chamber margins. In this case, volcano-tectonic extension in the caldera periphery tends to localise on regional-tectonic faults that lie just outside the chamber margins. In addition, volcano-tectonic reverse faults may link with and reactivate pre-collapse regional-tectonic faults that lie just inside the chamber margins. Secondly, where regional-tectonic strike-slip faults define corners in the magma chamber margin, they may halt the propagation of volcano-tectonic reverse faults. The experiments also highlight the potential difficulties in assessing the relative contributions of volcano-tectonic and regional-tectonic subsidence processes to the final caldera structure seen in the field. Disruption of the pre-collapse surface by regional-tectonic faulting was preserved during coherent volcano-tectonic subsidence to produce a caldera floor of differentially-subsided fault blocks. Without definitive evidence for syn-eruptive growth faulting, thickness changes in caldera fill across such regional-tectonic fault blocks in nature could be mistaken as evidence for piecemeal volcano-tectonic collapse.

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Acknowledgements

We thank John Graham, Thomas Walter, Olivier Roche, and Tim Druitt for support, technical advice, and helpful discussion. An award to VRT and EPH from the Enterprise Ireland International Collaboration Programme greatly aided this work. EPH also appreciates financial assistance from the Department of Geology, the Graduate Studies Office and the Trinity Trust, Trinity College Dublin. Incisive and constructive reviews by G. Girard, U. Riller, O. Roche, and an anonymous reviewer helped us to significantly improve this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

    Eoghan P. Holohan & Valentin R. Troll

  2. Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans, 5 rue Kessler, 63038, Clermont-Ferrand, France

    Benjamin van Wyk de Vries

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  1. Eoghan P. Holohan
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Correspondence to Eoghan P. Holohan.

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Holohan, E.P., van Wyk de Vries, B. & Troll, V.R. Analogue models of caldera collapse in strike-slip tectonic regimes. Bull Volcanol 70, 773–796 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-007-0166-x

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