Anisotropic stress accumulation in cooling lava flows and resulting fracture patterns: Insights from starch-water desiccation experiments

Abstract

Desiccation of starch-water slurries is a useful analog for the production of polygonal fractures/columnar joints in cooling lava flows. When left to dry completely, a simple mixture of 1:1 starch and water will produce columns that appear remarkably similar to natural columnar joints formed in cooled lava flows. Columns form when the accumulation of isotropic stress exceeds the tensile strength of a material, at which point a fracture forms and advances through the material perpendicular to the desiccating surface. Individual fractures will initially form orthogonal to the desiccation surface but will quickly evolve into a hexagonal fracture network that advances incrementally through the material. However, some fracture patterns found within natural lava flows are not hexagonal ( Lodge and Lescinsky, 2009-this issue), but rather have fracture lengths that are much longer than the distance to adjacent fractures. These fractures are commonly found at lava flows that have interacted with glacial ice during emplacement. The purpose of this study is to utilize starch analog experiments to better understand the formation of these fractures and the stress regimes responsible for their non-hexagonal patterns. To simulate anisotropic conditions during cooling, the starch slurry was poured into a container with a movable wall that was attached to a screw-type jack. The jack was then set to slowly extend or retract while the slurry desiccated. This resulted in either a decrease or increase in the chamber cross-sectional area thus creating compressional or extensional regimes. Decreasing chamber area (DCA) experiments resulted in fractures with larger lengths parallel to the direction of wall movement (also direction of compression). It also caused localized thrust faulting and curved column development. Increasing chamber area (ICA) experiments produced a zone of horizontal column development along the expanding margin (produced when the wall detached from the sample). Within this zone vertical fracture traces were observed that extended beyond individual columns. The viscoelastic rheology of both starch-water slurries and cooling lava flows aid in the production of these long and continuous fractures. During desiccation/cooling, the total strain in the material is divided into elastic strain (stress accumulating) and viscous strain (stress relaxing). During isotropic conditions, the viscous component is also isotropic therefore stress is relaxed equally in all directions. However, if there is an existing viscous strain, such as in the DCA and ICA experiments, stress can be preferentially relaxed in a single direction resulting in fracture development with preferred orientations.