Recent hydrothermal explosion craters in an old hyaloclastite flow, central Iceland

Abstract

Abstract Hundreds of small (diameter 2–50 m) hydrothermal explosion craters are dispersed across the top plateau of a hyaloclastite ridge in central Iceland. The craters are undisturbed by erosion and must be of Recent age. The ridge, Dyngjufjoll Ytri, is a tectonic horst, separated from the Dyngjufjoll volcanic center and the Askja caldera by a narrow graben. The ridge is 20 km by 6 km with a flat top partly covered with glacial sediments and air-fall tephra. It is composed of two major volcanic units, a lower hyaloclastite flow and an upper complex series containing pillow lavas, air-fall and surge tephra deposits and water lain sediments. Large (max. 9 m diameter) cylindrical gas pipes, coated with calcite, are locally exposed in the hyaloclastite flow. Evidence suggests that volcanism contributing to the formation of the ridge was long extinct when its surface was broken by the hydrothermal explosions. The elevated position of the ridge and its narrow form make unlikely the existence of a long-lived hydrothermal system. This is also borne out by the absence of intense thermal alteration of the material blown out in the explosions. The ridge is surrounded by postglacial lavas. One of these lavas issued from a fissure with the same strike as the ridge that terminates in a small crater at the base of its southern slope. It is suggested that the fissure continues as an intrusion into the basal hyaloclastite flow where water in gas pipes of the hyaloclastite was converted into high-pressure steam that exploded through the overlying unconsolidated formations.