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The 1998 eruption of Axial Seamount: New insights on submarine lava flow emplacement from high-resolution mapping

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Title The 1998 eruption of Axial Seamount: New insights on submarine lava flow emplacement from high-resolution mapping
Names Chadwick, William W., Jr. (creator)
Clague, D. A. (creator)
Embley, R. W. (creator)
Perfit, M. R. (creator)
Butterfield, D. A. (creator)
Caress, D. W. (creator)
Paduan, J. B. (creator)
Martin, J. F. (creator)
Sasnett, P. (creator)
Merle, S. G. (creator)
Bobbitt, A. M. (creator)
Date Issued 2013-10-02 (iso8601)
Note To the best of our knowledge, one or more authors of this paper were federal employees when contributing to this work. This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the American Geophysical Union and can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1525-2027.
Abstract Axial Seamount, an active submarine volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge at 46°N, 130°W, erupted in
January 1998 along 11 km of its upper south rift zone. We use ship-based multibeam sonar, high-resolution
(1 m) bathymetry, sidescan sonar imagery, and submersible dive observations to map four
separate 1998 lava flows that were fed from 11 eruptive fissures. These new mapping results give an
eruption volume of 31 x 10⁶ m³, 70% of which was in the northern-most flow, 23% in the southern-most
flow, and 7% in two smaller flows in between. We introduce the concept of map-scale submarine lava
flow morphology (observed at a scale of hundreds of meters, as revealed by the high-resolution
bathymetry), and an interpretive model in which two map-scale morphologies are produced by high
effusion-rate eruptions: ‘‘inflated lobate flows’’ are formed near eruptive vents, and where they drain
downslope more than 0.5–1.0 km, they transition to ‘‘inflated pillow flows.’’ These two morphologies are
observed on the 1998 lava flows at Axial. A third map-scale flow morphology that was not produced
during this eruption, ‘‘pillow mounds,’’ is formed by low effusion-rate eruptions in which pillow lava
piles up directly over the eruptive vents. Axial Seamount erupted again in April 2011 and there are
remarkable similarities between the 1998 and 2011 eruptions, particularly the locations of eruptive vents
and lava flow morphologies. Because the 2011 eruption reused most of the same eruptive fissures, 58% of
the area of the 1998 lava flows is now covered by 2011 lava.
Genre Article
Topic submarine eruption
Identifier Chadwick, W. W., et al. (2013), The 1998 eruption of Axial Seamount: New insights on submarine lava flow emplacement from high-resolution mapping, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 14, 3939–3968. doi:10.1002/ggge.20202

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