Subaqueous rhyolite block lavas in the Miocene Ushikiri Formation, Shimane Peninsula, SW Japan

Abstract

A rhyolite mass of the Miocene Ushikiri Formation in the western part of the Shimane Peninsula, SW Japan, is a small subaqueous edifice about 600 m high and 4 km wide, formed at water depths between 200 and 1000 m. It consists mainly of three relatively flat, lava-flow units 50–300 m in maximum thickness, each of which includes lobes and their polyhedral fragments. The lava lobes are poorly to well vesiculated, glassy to microcrystalline and flow-banded and -folded. Compared with mafic pillows, they are large, having thick, quenched and brecciated, glassy crusts because of their high viscosity, surface tension and thermal conductivity. Their surfaces disintegrate into polyhedral fragments and grade into massive volcanic breccia. The massive volcanic breccia composed of the lobe fragments is poorly sorted and covered with stratified volcanic breccia of the same rock type. The rhyolite lavas commonly bifurcate in a manner similar to mafic pillow lavas. However, they are highly silicic with 1–5 vol.% phenocrysts and have elongated vesicles and flow-folds, implying that they were visco-plastic during flowage. Their surface features are similar to those of subaerial block lava. With respect to rheological and morphological features, they are subaqueous equivalents of block lava.