A model for submarine rhyolite dome growth: Ponza Island (central Italy)

The Late Pliocene rhyolitic submarine volcanic rocks of Ponza island (Italy) can be interpreted as the subaqueous equivalent of subaerial dome complexes in terms of geometry and structure. Three coalescing domes of about 1 km radius and aligned along a NE-trending regional fracture have been identified. The main difference between subaqueous and subaerial lava domes is that in a subaqueous environment, lava is likely to undergo pervasive hyaloclastic brecciation, so that domes are mainly composed of variously brecciated, in situ to clast-rotated hyaloclastite rather than coherent lava. We suggest that the shape and rheologic behaviour through time of submarine domes are closely controlled by the development and thickness of the particulate hyaloclastic carapace, which assumes the role of the solid crust of domes in subaerial environment. The thickness of the hyaloclastic carapace at Ponza is greater than 150 m and emplaced during several different pulses (or eruptions). In the earliest pulses, lava is directly extruded on the seafloor and produces hyaloclastite, the degree of brecciation of which decreases inward to the coherent flow-banded rhyolite lava of the feeder dike. Once the hyaloclastic carapace is formed, further pulses of magma, combined with increase in height of the dome result in a local stress pattern characterised by a vertical σ1⪢σ2=σ3, producing concentric and radial fractures and normal faults. The newly rising magma, shielded by the hyaloclastic carapace, can intrude along these fault and fracture systems and invade previously emplaced but still water-saturated hyaloclastite. This produces the characteristic pattern of dikes observed at Ponza as a series of concentric dikes that are progressively less inclined outward with respect to the dome centre. These late stage dikes in turn produce hyaloclastite at their margins, but generally less fragmented than the embedding hyaloclastite, probably because the ascending magma is better shielded from direct contact with sea water. Periodic gravity collapses of the dome maintain the equilibrium between height and radius of the dome, as suggested at Ponza by the presence of mass flow deposits and the development of small topographic basins on top of the domes, probably related to debris removal. Some of these topographic depressions host subaqueous pyroclastic deposits, suggesting that, if due to vertical growth of the dome, water depth above the dome becomes shallower, hydromagmatic explosions may occur.