Abstract

The paper presents the data on age, mineralogy, geochemistry, and isotope composition of rocks from the Bolshoi Payalpan Volcano (Sredinny Range, Kamchatka). We compared these data with those on the Nosichan and Belogolovsky volcanoes, located within the Belogolovsky volcanic center. The basalts of the neck and the upper lava complex of Bolshoi Payalpan are compositionally similar to the intraplate-type trachybasalts of the Belogolovsky Volcano, and the basaltic andesites of the lower lava and the cone complex are similar to the island arc rocks of the Nosichan Volcano. Analysis of the data obtained evidences that spatial and temporal manifestations of intraplate and island-arc volcanism at the Bolshoi Payalpan Volcano are not accidental, but may be a consequence of a change in the degree and depth of melting of the same deep source with the involvement of a mantle diapir. The Belogolovsky volcanic center formed in a setting of the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene rifting. Its evolution, right up to its extinction, proceeded in the same geodynamic setting with an increase in depth of the mantle source and a decrease in the degree of its melting. Rock compositions of the Lower-Middle Pliocene Nosichan Volcano remain of the island-arc type under conditions of rifting, since they are associated with the mantle reservoir located at a shallower depth, which has experienced a higher degree of melting. There is good reason for considering large volcanic centers as spontaneously-developing geological entities. As the endogenous activity dies down, the degree of melting decreases and the depth of melting increases with the replacement of island-arc volcanism by intraplate volcanism. The volcanic center becomes extinct.

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