Physical Volcanological and Petrogenetic Implications of Intra-lava Flow Geochemical Heterogeneity in the Columbia River Flood Basalt Province, USA.

Continental flood basalt lava flows are widely assumed to represent compositionally uniform and rapidly erupted products of large well-mixed magma reservoirs. However, this study presents new data to illustrate systematic element and isotope variations within the flow field formed by an individual flood basalt eruption, both vertically within each sheet lobe and laterally between the constituent lobes. Such variation is significant in chemostratigraphic correlation of flood basalt lava units, in identifying source variability during one eruption, and in petrogenetic modeling. We investigate the extent and cause of compositional variation through tracing lava sheet lobes in a 2,660 cubic kilometer pahoehoe flow field formed during a single eruption in the Columbia River Basalt Province, USA. This is based on features related to emplacement by the inflation mechanism. This method of emplacement is supported by small but statistically significant and systematic major and trace element variation e.g. MgO 3.09- 4.55 wt%, Ni 17.5-25.6 ppm, indicative of fractional crystallisation. Re-Os isotopes indicate progressive crustal contamination of the magma over the timescale of a single flood basalt eruption. By establishing this physical volcanological framework, we determine a temporal link with the supply of lava from the vent(s) and apply it to investigate sequential magmatic evolution during the timescale of one eruption.