A brief comparison of lava flows from the Deccan Volcanic Province and the Columbia-Oregon Plateau Flood Basalts: Implications for models of flood basalt emplacement

Abstract

The nature and style of emplacement of Continental Flood Basalt (CFB) lava flows has been a matter of great interest as well as considerable controversy in the recent past. However, even a cursory review of published literature reveals that the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) and Hawaiian volcanoes provide most of the data relevant to this topic. It is interesting to note, however, that the CRBG lava flows and their palaeotopographic control is atypical of other CFB provinces in the world. In this paper, we first present a short overview of important studies pertaining to the emplacement of flood basalt flows. We then briefly review the morphology of lava flows from the Deccan Volcanic Province (DVP) and the Columbia-Oregon Plateau flood basalts. The review underscores the existence of significant variations in lava flow morphology between different provinces, and even within the same province. It is quite likely that there were more than one way of emplacing the voluminous and extensive CFB lava flows. We argue that the establishment of general models of emplacement must be based on a comprehensive documentation of lava flow morphology from all CFB provinces.