Emplacement and Eruption Style in the Franklin Large Igneous Province, Victoria Island, Arctic Canada
Abstract
The Neoproterozoic Franklin large igneous province preserves up to 1.1 km thickness of basaltic volcanics (Natkusiak Fm.). The Natkusiak volcanics include basal agglutinate and local hyaloclastite breccias and pillows, lensoid or sheet flows, some picritic, and lahar deposits that seem to infill paleo-valleys. The overlying main series lavas are mostly subareal sheet flows and exhibit cycles of upwardly decreasing MgO. Localized vent facies include unconsolidated scoria and bombs, spatter, and fumarolic malachite/zeolite around native Cu veins. Lateral trace element chemical heterogeneity implies eruption through multiple vents with distinct plumbing systems. The underlying exposed 3-4 km of the Shaler Supergroup are dolostones, sandstones, gypsum evaporites and shales, which are riddled with sills (most 20-50m, up to 100m). Sills constitute 50-75% of the section in most places, and belong to two distinct geochemical subtypes. A heterogeneous LREE-enriched facies includes sills with olivine-rich bases. A more homogeneous diabasic subtype has flatter REE patterns and occurs higher in the section. The oft-reported saucer-shaped sill morphology does not occur in the Franklin sills, which tend to be concordant over 10s of km distance. In many places, up-section transgressions appear to be structurally controlled by pre-existing faults that guided magma ascent and may have modulated reactivation and injection of olivine-rich slurries into pre-existing sills. The roof-zones of upward transgressions are injected with arcuate dikes on various scales (1m to 1 km), and are often associated with cataclasites, oxide-sulfide skarns and calc-silicates. These reflect the complexity of melt-driven fracture propagation, varying host ductility, fluctuation of magma pressure, and expulsion of melt and fluids from cooling sills. Some of these intrusions are enriched in sulphide minerals, possibly the result of assimilation of S-rich host rocks.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFM.V21F..02B
- Keywords:
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- 1036 GEOCHEMISTRY / Magma chamber processes;
- 8035 STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY / Pluton emplacement;
- 8137 TECTONOPHYSICS / Hotspots;
- large igneous provinces;
- and flood basalt volcanism;
- 8414 VOLCANOLOGY / Eruption mechanisms and flow emplacement