Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
AND ILLUSIONS.
Igor Kryvoshlyk.
1
Fig.1. Tephra from volcano B can be described as samples from volcano A [18]. The
entire B-tephra is going OUT of B-crater (red arrows), while the same B-tephra is coming
INTO the A-crater (green arrows). Ash-B can not make a deposit in its own B-crater, but
in the A-crater and in a surrounded area only.
There are a lot of pyroclastic rocks around craters [8], but what is inside? For
comparison, let’s imagine, how many pellets drop back down into the same
rifle after shooting up into the air? Please, make an experiment.
Really pyroclastic lapilli have a very distinctive texture of their surface well
known among volcanologists [5] as a “bread crust” (Fig. 1a & 1b). Does
anybody have a sample of “kimberlitic lapilli” with such “bread crust”? And
what about “ribbon bombs” (Fig. 2a & 2b)? How often these and another so
distinctive pyroclasts (Fig. 3, 4, 5) can be observed within kimberlite pipes?
Fig.1a. “Bread crust” bomb [6]. Fig.1b. “Bread crust” bomb [6].
2
Fig.2a. Ribbon bomb [6]. Fig.2b. Ribbon bomb [6].
Fig.5. Volcanic cow-pie bomb. Idaho. Fig.6. Spherical bomb with vesicular
surface. Arizona
“By far the greater number of bombs is…very vesicular” [5]. Nobody ever
described vesicular kimberlite bombs or lapilli, as well as pumice or scoria -
well-known pyroclastic rocks variety (Fig. 6, 7, 8), however still unknown
for kimberlites. But, please, don’t confuse this originally magmatic feature
(Fig. 8, 15) with secondary porosity of some kimberlites which is a result of
postmagmatic leaching mostly of pseudomorphs after olivine.
3
Fig.7. Volcanic pumice can float, Fig.8. Porous scoria. The view is about
kimberlite - does not two inches across. Courtesy of Lynn
S. Fichter, James Madison University,
Harrisonburg, Virginia
1 mm
Fig. 9. Sharply angular and porous shard Fig. 10. “Tuffisitic kimberlite” with
of real volcanic ash under electron micro solid well rounded ash size particles
scope. Mt. Erebus, Antarctica. [10]. Red (PL) which are similar to drops of
4
arrows join the same size particles. liquid inside another liquid (like oil
in water, Fig. 12). Tuzo kimberlite.
PPL [16].
Fig. 11. Example of liquid immiscibility. Fig. 12. The vegetable oil (yellow) and
Orbicular granite on the Pacific coast in water are immiscible liquids. Curriculum
northern Chile. Homeschool Conservation – Liquid Layers.69 by Aurora Lipper.
Park "Santuario de la Naturaleza”. Graham
Wilson. February 2009.
5
From the point of view of the resistance against mechanical disintegration,
massive kimberlites look like solid magmatic but altered and weathered
paleotypal rocks. On the contrary, many of pyroclastic rocks look like
typical alluvium (Fig. 13, 14), perhaps, because both of them have similar
sedimentary origin?
Fig.13. Tephra deposit 130 km from the Fig. 14. Sedimentary alluvium
source. Crater Lake, Oregon. [11].
The Pele’s tears are the important element of tephra (Fig. 16). As lava drops
fall through the air, they are aerodynamically shaped with comet-like tails.
Frankly speaking, during my 40-years career in kimberlite geology I never
saw and never heard about such shape of kimberlitic autoliths like a separated
piece of rock with comet-like tails.
Fig.15. Highly vesicular basalt tephra Fig. 16. Pele’s tears. Mauna Ulu,
6
clasts. Thin section [9, sample 197]. Hawaii. [Photo by J.D.Griggs, 1984].
7
Fig. 17. Cross-section of the 3D model of the typical volcano. Kimberlite pipe can be
classified as a main volcanic vent. Orange – magma, brown – pyroclastic rocks [12]. Clear
absence of pyroclastic in the main vent.
8
„Accretionary lapilli are pellets that formed by the accretion of fine ash
around condensing water droplets or solid particles, particularly in steam-
rich eruptive columns. Commonly, they exhibit (Fig. 18, 19) a concentric
internal structure [22, 23].
Fig. 18. Close-up of a lapilli-bearing dike Fig. 19. Accretionary lapilli from the basal
penetrating the basal breccia near Fuentes suevite breccia near Corbatón in the Rubielos
Calientes. Note that many lapilli have the de la Cérida impact basin [23].
typical onion skin structure around a stony
core [22].
Reviewing the attached photos (Fig. 18, 19), it is hard to identify this
“typical onion skin structure“. Some kind of concentricity is clearly present,
but rather like trivial contact alteration. Contact – between two chemically
different melts generated by the liquid immiscibility of the original magma.
Finely, the rocks on Figs. 18-19 have a matrix-support texture. For how long
time these „lapilli“ were hanged in the air motionlessly before the matrix
was created? Is this possible?
What kind of material created this matrix? If this was the same ash, so why
part of the ash became „organized“ into lapilli, when other part of the same
ash was left intact? There are only two extreme products of this process:
9
lapilly and matrix. Where are the intermediate formations between lapilli
and matrix?
Current texture (Figs. 18, 19) remind rather liquid immiscibility (Fig. 12)
than a volcanic product.
10
Fig.20. Example of wrong interpretation of poor petrography [14]. Tuffisites injected in
the solid Riphean sandstones (???).
They are trying to prove that the phreatomagmatic mechanism had created all
kimberlitic and other diatremes. However, it’s hard to believe that each
diatreme was provided (?) with “individual” lake of water. About 90% of
Canadian kimberlites have occurred under the lakes. And who was that lucky
“sniper” who hundred of times had shot the magma columns exactly in the
center of each lake from a distance of 150-200 km? And what if there is no
water around?
11
magma had [<200C, 15, 17] and thus it could not create an intensive water
boiling which is so necessary for phreatic eruption. So, is the
“phreatomagmatism” a real natural phenomenon or just an illusion?
12
Fig.21. Kilauea, Hawaii. Lava flows into the ocean. There is a lot of steam, but no
explosions. Photo from web site of Hedonisia Hawaii Eco-Hostel.
13
lava and ash, 8: stratum, 9: sill, 10: and ash, 5: stratum, 6: water table,
magma conduit, 11: magma chamber, 7: explosion, 8: magma chamber
12: dike [20]. [20].
Once again, which substance explosion was observed (?) at point 7? When
magma will approach a water table, water will be partially vaporized and
partially will go away from magma. Without explosion. Thermodynamically
it is an open system. After the first touch of magma, water table will be
completely dried up and there is no more water around to serve for the
second explosion. Thus, phreatomagmatic system might (?) work as a one-
time event. However, statistically [21] for the year 1994, the main number of
volcanic activity lasted 10 – 100 days. Can phreatic volcano stay active for
the so long time?
Each natural phenomenon must be reproduced multiple times at different
conditions. For example, the phenomenon of liquid immiscibility can be
observed easily every day in the cup of soup as an oil-water system. About
ten years ago the phenomenon of liquid immiscibility was discovered in the
bilious system of humans [24]. But how often and where we can observe a
phreatic phenomenon?
Finally, let’s get back to kimberlites. More than a century ago, A. Du Toit
(1906) noted that grooves or striae (after mechanical abrasion of the pipe
walls by intruded kimberlite) could be inclined or even horizontal [1]. This
would be absolutely impossible if kimberlite magma had just one - vertical
direction of its movement. How do you combine this fact with a pyroclastic
idea?
All questions have one answer: NO. But, nevertheless, against the logic and
natural facts you still call kimberlites –”pyroclastic” rocks. Why?
REFERENCES:
14
2. V.V.Kovalsky. Kimberlite rocks of Yakutia and the main principles of
their petrogenetic classification. Academy of Sciences of USSR, Moscow,
1963.
3. I.N.Kryvoshlyk. The peculiarity of morphology and some questions of
genesis of the autolithes in kimberlite breccias. “Geology and
Geophysics”, # 7, Novosibirsk, 1976.
4. I.N.Kryvoshlyk. Brief review of the theory of liquid immiscibility of
kimberlite magma. Seventh International Kimberlite Conference. Cape
Town, April 1998. Extended abstracts. 473-474.
5. G.A.Macdonald. Volcanoes. Prentice-Hall. 1972.
6. Glendale Community College. Earth Science Image Archive.
7. Scanning Service Konsult Inc. Patricia Sheahan. Periodical
Newsletter. University of British Columbia.
8. Volcano. The Canadian Encyclopedia.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com
9. http://www.ga.gov.au/odp/publications/197_IR/chap_03/c3_f13.htm
#1333303
10. New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. Secondary
Electron Images.
11. http://www.flickr.com/photo/johnn/259216887/
12. www.britannica.com/ebc/art-54103/In-a-typical...
13. J.A.Jackson. Glossary of Geology. 1997.
14. K.E. Yakobson, A.P. Kazak, E.V. Tolmacheva. Injective tuffisites in
the north of the Siberian Platform. Proceedings of the 23d Geological
Conference. Komi, Syktyvkar, 1999, 177-178.
15. Myk. Zinchuk. 2008. MINERALOGICAL COLLECTION. N 58 (1–
2). P. 80–87.
16. Hetman, C.M., Scott Smith, B.H., Paul, J.L., Winter, F., 2004.
Geology of the Gahcho Kue Kimberlite pipes, NWT, Canada: root to
diatreme magmatic transition zones. Lithos 76, 51 – 74.
17. W. Dan Housel. 2006. Diamonds. In: Industrial Minerals & Rocks,
7th Edition.
18. Moss, S.W. 2009. Volcanology of the A154N kimberlite at Diavik:
implications for eruption dynamics. The University of British Columbia.
19. Kurszlaukis, S., Büttner, R., Zimanowski, B. and Lorenz, V. 1998. On
the first experimental phreatomagmatic explosion of a kimberlite melt.
Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. Volume 80, Issues 3-
4, February 1998, Pages 323-326.
20. Volcanism of Canada. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
21. Simkin T., Siebert L. Volcanoes of the World. Geoscience Press,
15
Tuscon, Arizona, 1994.
22. Allaby, A., Allaby, M. 1999; A Dictionary of Earth Sciences. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. Online version.
23. Accretionary lapilli from the Azuara and Rubielos de la Cérida impact
structures (Spain). www.impact-structures.com/Archiv/wkarchiv15.html
24. I.N.Kryvoshlyk, O.A.Khoma. Liquid immiscibility in human bile.
Optical method of diagnostics of gallstone disease.
www.docstoc.com/docs/.../Liquid-immiscibility-in-human-bile
16