Disclosing the temperature of columnar jointing in lavas

Anthony Lamur (), Yan Lavallée, Fiona E. Iddon, Adrian J. Hornby, Jackie E. Kendrick, Felix W. Aulock and Fabian B. Wadsworth
Additional contact information
Anthony Lamur: University of Liverpool
Yan Lavallée: University of Liverpool
Fiona E. Iddon: University of Liverpool
Adrian J. Hornby: University of Liverpool
Jackie E. Kendrick: University of Liverpool
Felix W. Aulock: University of Liverpool
Fabian B. Wadsworth: University of Liverpool

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Columnar joints form by cracking during cooling-induced contraction of lava, allowing hydrothermal fluid circulation. A lack of direct observations of their formation has led to ambiguity about the temperature window of jointing and its impact on fluid flow. Here we develop a novel thermo-mechanical experiment to disclose the temperature of columnar jointing in lavas. Using basalts from Eyjafjallajökull volcano (Iceland) we show that contraction during cooling induces stress build-up below the solidus temperature (980 °C), resulting in localised macroscopic failure between 890 and 840 °C. This temperature window for incipient columnar jointing is supported by modelling informed by mechanical testing and thermal expansivity measurements. We demonstrate that columnar jointing takes place well within the solid state of volcanic rocks, and is followed by a nonlinear increase in system permeability of

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03842-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-03842-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03842-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().