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Rhyolite (/ ˈraɪ.əlaɪt / RY-ə-lyte) [1][2][3][4] is the most silica -rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral assemblage is predominantly quartz, sanidine, and plagioclase.
If the magma does not contain much gas, rhyolite tends to just form a lava dome, and such eruptions are more common. However, when mixed with gas or steam, rhyolitic eruptions can be extremely violent. The magma froths to form pumice and ash, which is thrown out with great force. Such eruptions tend to be earlier in any given eruption cycle.
Eruptions can last anywhere from hours to days, with longer eruptions being associated with more felsic volcanoes. Although they are usually associated with felsic magma, Plinian eruptions can occur at basaltic volcanoes, if the magma chamber differentiates with upper portions rich in silicon dioxide, [40] or if magma ascends rapidly. [42]
Eruption. Oruanui eruption impact North Island in terms of approximate 10cm ash deposit (white shading) and approximate ignimbrite from pyroclastic flow (yellow shading). [2]: 529 The central red area is the Oruanui caldera with surrounding collapse crater in lighter red. It is superimposed on present day New Zealand although at the time New ...
June 1951 (Rotomahana) June to August 1886 (Tarawera) Mount Tarawera is a volcano on the North Island of New Zealand within the older but volcanically productive Ōkataina Caldera. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive basaltic eruption in 1886.
Over time as crystallization continues and the system loses heat, these reservoirs cool. In order to remain active, magma chambers must have continued recharge of hot basaltic melt into the system. When this basaltic material mixes with the evolved rhyolitic magma, the composition is returned to andesite, its intermediate phase. [27]
It is formed from rhyolite magma. [15] It has a quite complex eruptive history but only with one definite significant Plinian eruption. [14] Mount Taranaki is an andesite cone and the most recent of four Taranaki volcanoes about 140 km (87 mi) west of the Taupō Volcanic Zone. [16]
This eruption is known as the first major explosive eruption of rhyolite magma in nearly a century, since the 1912 eruption of Novarupta, in Alaska. [8] Although there have been rhyolitic eruptions in the southern section of the Southern Volcanic Zone in the past, these are relatively scarce and there is no historic rhyolitic eruption of the ...