Landscape and sedimentary response to catastrophic debris avalanches, western Taranaki, New Zealand

Abstract

Catastrophic volcanic debris avalanches reshape volcanic edifices with up to half of pre-collapse cone volumes being removed. Deposition from this debris avalanche deposit often fills and inundates the surrounding landscape and may permanently change the distribution of drainage networks. On the weakly-incised Mt. Taranaki ring-plain, volcanic debris avalanche deposits typically form a large, wedge shape (in plan view), over all flat-lying fans. Following volcanic debris avalanches a period of intense re-sedimentation commonly begins on ring-plain areas, particularly in wet or temperate climates. This is exacerbated by large areas of denuded landscape, ongoing instability in the scarp/source region, damming of river/stream systems, and in some cases inherent instability of the volcanic debris avalanche deposits. In addition, on Mt. Taranaki, the collapse of a segment of the cone by volcanic debris avalanche often generates long periods of renewed volcanism, generating large volumes of juvenile tephra onto unstable and unvegetated slopes, or construction of new domes with associated rock falls and block-and-ash flows. The distal ring-plain impact from these post-debris avalanche conditions and processes is primarily accumulation of long run-out debris flow and hyperconcentrated flow deposits with a variety of lithologies and sedimentary character. Common to these post-debris avalanche units is evidence for high-water-content flows that are typically non-cohesive. Hence sedimentary variations in these units are high in lateral and longitudinal exposure in relation to local topography. The post-collapse deposits flank large-scale fans and hence similar lithological and chronological sequences can form on widely disparate sectors of the ring plain. These deposits on Mt. Taranaki provide a record of landscape response and ring-plain evolution in three stages that divide the currently identified Warea Formation: 1) the deposition of broad fans of material adjacent to the debris avalanche unit; 2) channel formation and erosion of Stage 1 deposits, primarily at the contact between debris avalanche deposits and the Stage 1 deposits and the refilling of these channels; and 3) the development of broad tabular sheet flows on top of the debris avalanche, leaving sediments between debris avalanche mounds. After a volcanic debris avalanche, these processes represent an ever changing and evolving hazard-scape with hazard maps needing to be regularly updated to take account of which stage the sedimentary system is in.