VOLCANO: POST-IGC FIELD WORKSHOP - WHITSUNDAY SILICIC LARGE IGNEOUS PROVINCE, AUGUST 2012

[Jean-François Smekens <jsmekens@xxxxxxx>]

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POST-IGC FIELD WORKSHOP - WHITSUNDAY SILICIC LARGE IGNEOUS PROVINCE, AUGUST 2012
From: Scott Bryan <scott.bryan@xxxxxxxxxx>
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Dear All,

  A field  workshop to the Whitsunday Silicic Large Igneous Province will be held following the 34th IGC in Brisbane. The field trip is from August 11-17 and begins and ends in Airlie Beach, Northeast Queensland. We plan to be aboard a 101 ft boat for  the duration of the field  trip. Details on the field trip can be found at:

 

http://www.34igc.org/queensland-field-trips.php#q-5-cretaceous-volcanics-and-tectonism-of-the-whitsunday-large-igneous-province

 

Images from last year's successful post-IUGG conference field workshop, and a taste of what to expect on this year's field trip can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Gotcha29#p/u/0/Um62Pb5oHSI

 

Scientific Background:

The Early Cretaceous Whitsunday Silicic Large Igneous Province (SLIP) is the largest of the world’s known SLIPs with an extrusive volume of >2.2 million km^3. While the Whitsunday SLIP shows all the hallmarks of other major LIP events in Earth history (large areal extent, eruptive volume, intraplate setting, and short eruptive pulse(s) when the majority of the igneous volume was emplaced), it is volumetrically dominated by silicic igneous compositions. Silicic LIP formation in general, appears related to their emplacement along fertile continental margins where widespread partial melting (driven by large mantle-derived thermal and material fluxes into the crust) and consequent silicic magma eruption replaced the more typical outpouring of large volumes of basaltic magma.

 

Like the other major Phanerozoic SLIPs (Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico; Chon Aike Province, South America-Antarctica)  many aspects of these provinces remain poorly understood such as their volcanic and geochemical evolution, the interrelationships between magmatism, extension and the formation of volcanic rifted margins, and genetic linkages between magmas and epithermal mineralisation. The superb cross-sectional exposure provided by the tilted and partly exhumed volcanic sequences of the Whitsunday SLIP give rare insights into the core architecture of other younger or less well-dissected or exposed, large-volume silicic-dominated volcanic provinces. Significant research over the last 20 years has provided new information on the volcanic geology, igneous petrology/geochemistry, regional setting and timing of Whitsunday SLIP magmatism. The field  workshop  will review the results of these studies and some questions to be considered in this field workshop are:

• What do the vent regions look like to the supervolcanoes (e.g.., structures, lithologies, thicknesses of sequences, etc.) that produce the large volumes of ignimbrite?
• What do the long-term temporal compositional trends of the volcanic successions tell us about the nature and timing of extension and extensional fault influences on magmatic systems?
• How does large-volume silicic magma generation impact on the continuing evolution of crustal composition, mineralogy, structure and its behaviour during subsequent phases of rifting?
• How does SLIP magmatism integrate with regional tectonic models of volcanic rifted margin formation?

Dr Scott Bryan  |  Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow
Science and Engineering Faculty | Queensland University of Technology

R Block Level 2, 204, Gardens Point
ph +61 7 3138 4827 | fax +61 7 3138 2330|  email scott.bryan@xxxxxxxxxx
CRICOS No 00213J

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