Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

Geological Society of America, Geology, 4(36), p. 323

DOI: 10.1130/g24329a.1

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Unzipping Long Valley: An explanation for vent migration patterns during an elliptical ring fracture eruption

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Long Valley caldera, California, formed during the cataclysmic Pleistocene eruption of the Bishop Tuff. Previous stratigraphic and petrologic studies of this eruption deciphered an intriguing pattern of vent migration, thought to mirror the lateral propagation (“unzipping”) of magma-tapping ring fractures during caldera collapse. From scaled analog models, we show that this unzipping pattern was intrinsically related to the high plan-view ellipticity of the precollapse magma chamber roof. We also provide a first-order kinematic explanation for the systematic location of initial elliptical roof failure and for the lateral propagation of highly elliptical ring fractures.