Structural Geology

GLY 4400 Lecture 04 Primary Igneous and Impact Structures

Sheet Intrusions Around a Volcano

Figure 2-21 in text

2

Ring Dikes
The dikes dip steeply away from the volcano, or are nearly vertical, and have a circular trace in map view

Cone Sheets
Similar to ring dikes except the dip is toward the center of the volcano

Radial Dikes
Vertically dipping beds which radiate out from the center of a volcano like the spokes on a wheel Shiprock, New Mexico as seen from an ultralight
5

Photo: Wiley Wales

Laccolith Formation

If the loading above a sill is weak in one area, the intrusion may bulge upward to form laccolith Laccoliths parallel existing strata along their base, but bulge up in the center
6

The Great Dike of Zimbabwe

Bisects the entire length of Zimbabwae in southern Africa One of the prominent visual features easily recognized from low orbit The volcanic rocks which make up the dike are about 1.2 billion years old The straight line of the dike is offset in places by faults which are often occupied by streams flowing through the fractures
7

Shallow Intrusions
Shallow intrusions have sharp contacts, because the large temperature difference between the magma and the country rock leads to very different rock types

Image of a sheet like (tabular) intrusion cutting the Madison limestone in Spearfish canyon in the Black Hills

Migmatite Photo
Migmatite with transitional border to the amphibolite Scale 13 cm Location: Skattra gneiss, Troms, north Norwegian Caledonides
9

Pahoehoe Image
Surface of pahoehoe is billowy and undulating and its skin is smooth and continuous The plastic skin is wrinkled by flow movement causing the ropy structure seen on the surface of some flows such as this pahoehoe flow in Hawaii Thin, congealed skin remains plastic over the red hot fluid interior
10

Aa Image
Aa lava in general is more viscous than pahoehoe The outer skin tends to form a rubbly, sharpedged surface As the flow moves along, the surface rubble at the edge of the flow falls off of the front edge and is over-ridden
11

Flows over steeper terrain move more rapidly and tend to be of the Aa type while slower flows tend to form pahoehoe Galapagos Islands

Pillow Basalt

These "pillows" are formed mostly in basalt lavas when eruptions occur beneath the sea, under glaciers, or in areas where lava spills into a lake or marshy ground These basalt pillows near Oamaru, New Zealand, formed more than 25 million years ago
12

Nue ardentees
Photograph of a pyroclastic flow by Heilprin, 1902 Mt. Pele Photos taken several weeks after initial nue ardentees

13

Devils Postpile

Polygonal columns of the Devil's Postpile in California average about 46 cm across Jointing of this sort may attain a high degree of regularity The horizontal joints divide the columns into a series of segments Such columnar jointing is found in all types of lava flows, including ash flows It is also conspicuous in dikes and other intrusions
14

Devils Tower

Devils Tower, an isolated pillar of basalt located in Wyoming, shows characteristic columnar cooling features According to Native American stories, the vertical lines, or cracks, were the claw marks of a giant bear
15

Barringer Crater, Arizona

There are about two dozen obvious craters on earth Shallow, bowl-shaped excavation, 1 km in diameter, with an upraised sub-circular rim, and is extraordinarily wellpreserved
16

Meteor (Barringer) Crater was the first terrestrial crater recognized as an impact structure back in the 1920's

Sudbury Impact Breccia

Impact breccia on northern rim of the Sudbury impact crater This major asteroid collision occurred 1.85 billion years ago during the early Proterozoic
17

Impact Dynamics
When an impact occurs, the rock initially is pushed away from the center, but then elastic-rebound occurs and the rock surges back and up in the center The movement causes faults to develop and brecciates the rock

18

Shock Lamellae in Quartz

Quartz subject to very high pressure fluctuations develops shock lamellae Shocked quartz crystal from the K/T boundary layer of the Raton Basin, Colorado/New Mexico Photo by Glen Isett, US Geological Survey
19

Gravity Map of Sudbury

This map portrays the horizontal gradient of the gravity anomaly associated with the Sudbury Structure, after correcting for deformation that took place since its formation about 1850 million year age This illustrates that the structure could very well have been circular, supporting the hypothesis that it was in fact formed by impact
20