Volcanoes as possible indicators of tectonic stress orientation — Aleutians and Alaska

Abstract

A new method for obtaining from volcanic surface features the orientations of the principal tectonic stresses is applied to Aleutian and Alaskan volcanoes. The underlying concept for this method is that flank eruptions for polygenetic volcanoes can be regarded as the result of a large-scale natural magmafracturing experiment. The method essentially relies on the recognition of the preferred orientation of radial and parallel dike swarms, primarily using the distribution of monogenetic craters including flank volcanoes. Since dikes tend to propagate in a direction normal to the minimum principal stress (T-axis), the method primarily yields the direction of the maximum horizontal compression (MHC) of regional origin. The direction of the MHC may correspond to either the maximum (P-axis) or intermediate (B-axis) principal stress.

The direction of MHC obtained at 20 volcanoes in the Aleutian arc coincides well with the direction of convergence between the Pacific and North American plates. This result provides evidence that in the island arc the inferred direction of MHC is parallel to the maximum principal tectonic stress. In the back-arc region, general E-W trends of MHC are obtained from seven volcanic fields on islands on the Bering Sea shelf and the mainland coast of Alaska. These volcanic fields consist mostly of clusters of monogenetic volcanoes of alkali basalt. In the back-arc region, the trends of MHC may correspond to an E-W intermediate, a vertical maximum, and a N-S minimum principal stress.

Implications for the tectonics of island arcs and back-arc regions are: (1) volcanic belts of some island arcs, including the Aleutian arc, are under compressional deviatoric stress in the direction of plate convergence. It is improbable that such arcs would split along the volcanic axis to form actively spreading marginal basins. (2) This compressional stress at the arc, probably generated by underthrusting, appears to be transmitted across the entire arc structure, but is apparently replaced within several hundred kilometers by a stress system characterized by horizontal extension (tensional deviatoric stress) in the back-arc region. (3) The volcanoes associated with these two stress systems differ in type (polygenetic vs. monogenetic) and in the chemistry of their magmas (andesitic vs. basaltic). These differences and the regional differences in orientation of the principal tectonic stresses suggest that the back-arc stress system has its own source at considerable depth beneath the crust.