Subterranean origin of accreted lapilli in cone-sheets of the houshihushan sub-volcanic ring complex, Shanhaiguan, China

Abstract

In addition to syenite ring dykes and multiple alkaline granite stocks, the sub-volcanic Houshihushan alkaline ring complex near Shanhaiguan, Qinhuangdao City, contains cone-sheets of two types: a majority filled with granite porphyry and a minority filled with quartz syenite porphyry. Many cone sheets show evidence of multiple magma intrusion events. Some granite porphyry sheets’ multiple chilled margins display magmatic roll structures indicating that turbulent magma flowed up the fractures. In one upward-closing cone-sheet K-feldspar phenocrysts floated up through fluid granite porphyry magma and became concentrated at the top providing direct evidence of shallow-level crystal fractionation, confirmed by published rock analyses. Accreted lapilli with K-feldspar crystal cores occur only in the inner parts of a minority of cone-sheets and field relationships indicate that they must have formed beneath the ground surface. Similar lapilli occur in erupted ignimbrites preserved in the collapsed caldera. Voids between lapilli in cone-sheets indicate the presence of volumes of gas below the surface that could have flowed upwards as fast-moving hot gas streams. We propose a mechanism of formation that began with subterranean magmatic rolls with K-feldspar crystal cores that formed on dyke walls, and became detached. Then they were caught up in rising gas streams and erupted at the surface. Thus accreted lapilli formed underground, were erupted along with blobs of fluid glass in escaping gases, and transported over the surface in nuees ardentes, to settle and cool as ignimbrite flows.