Major element frequency distribution of the Japanese Quaternary volcanic rocks

Abstract

Published chemical analyses of the Japanese Quaternary volcanic rocks are being collected to build a comprehensive data file. About 1600 selected major element analyses which include all 13 components of the bulk chemistry of the lavas and pyroclastics are considered here. Care was taken to correct misprints in the published analyses through correspondence with the original authors or analysts. Analyses are weighted against the volume of the volcano on which rock the analyses are made. Total volume of the volcanic material thus treated in this paper amounts to 3900 km³ or about 80% of the total Quaternary volcanic materials. The volume-weighted histograms for the most components show a unimodal profile when the large-scale caldera-forming pyroclastic flow and fall deposits are disregarded. SiO₂ histogram shows a broad primary mode around 57 %. For many components, the large-scale pyroclastic deposits form a secondary mode at the positions corresponding to a felsic composition. This strongly suggests that the mode of generation and ascent of such calderaforming felsic magma is different from that of the ordinary cone- and dome-building basalt-andesite-dacite series of magmas. Number-of-analyses histograms for the same set of combinations reveals that number frequencies show quite similar profiles as those for the volume-weighted histograms for the Japanese Quaternary volcanics. The profiles of the histograms for the Northeast Japan arc is very much similar as those of the whole Japanese islands while those for Izu-Mariana and Southwest Japan arcs are different. The differences are due to the different proportions of the rocks belonging to tholeiitic, calc-alkalic and alkali rock series in each arc. The whole Japan histograms may be considered as a good representative of the chemical characteristics of the average Japanese Quaternary (less than the last half million years) volcanic rocks.