Formation of composite pyroclasts by welding inside a lithic-rich mafic eruption column (Los Marteles Caldera, Canary Islands)

Abstract

The tuff ring of the Los Marteles phreatomagmatic maar (Gran Canaria, Canary Islands) includes a particular unit that comprises abundant composite spheroidal clasts. However, these clasts differ from cored clasts elsewhere that consist of erupted lithic pyroclasts with an adhering rim of coherent chilled magma. The composite clasts here studied range from lapilli to bombs, and are cored or concentrically banded. Among the welded components, several types of primary clasts are discerned that include: (i) juvenile clasts, resultant of the magma inertial fragmentation, and (ii) cognate or accessory lithic clasts. Juvenile clasts include glass spheres (nano- and microachneliths) and crystals. Lithic clasts include lava fragments, scoriae and olivine xenocrysts. Primary clasts are interpreted to have been produced by the explosion of a partially crystallized mafic (SiO2≈50–55%) magma that erupted into a maar, filled-up with scoriae plus lava fragments. The explosion would have originated as a dense and turbulent gas thrust into which the repeated collisions of melt droplets with solid clasts generated droplet-coated crystals, lithic clasts and single glass spheres. We interpret the cored and concentrically banded pyroclasts to be made of coalesced and/or agglutinated particles coated with a melt rim to the rest of the components. These composite clasts developed spheroidal shapes during transport within a violent Strombolian eruption column due to spin effect and, finally, landed in solid state.