ICE-MELT COLLAPSE PITS AND ASSOCIATED FEATURES IN THE 1991 LAHAR DEPOSITS OF VOLCAN-HUDSON, CHILE - CRITERIA TO DISTINGUISH ERUPTION-INDUCED GLACIER MELT
Mj. Branney et Js. Gilbert, ICE-MELT COLLAPSE PITS AND ASSOCIATED FEATURES IN THE 1991 LAHAR DEPOSITS OF VOLCAN-HUDSON, CHILE - CRITERIA TO DISTINGUISH ERUPTION-INDUCED GLACIER MELT, Bulletin of volcanology, 57(5), 1995, pp. 293-302
In subaerial volcaniclastic sequences, structures formed by ice blocks
can provide information about a volcano's history of lahar generation
by glacier melt. At Volcan Hudson in Chile, catastrophic lahars were
initiated by eruption-induced melting of glacier ice in August and Oct
ober 1991. They transported large ice blocks 50 km down the Rio de los
Huemules valley to the sea. Large current crescents with lee-side len
ses were formed where ice blocks were deposited during waning stages o
f the flood. When stranded blocks of ice melted, they left cone-shaped
and ring-shaped heaps of ice-rafted debris on the sediment surface. S
everal hundred ice blocks were completely buried within the aggrading
lahar sediment, and when these melted circular collapse pits formed in
the sediment. Collapse types included subsided coherent blocks of sed
iment bounded by an outward-dipping ring-fracture, trapdoor structures
with horseshoe-shaped fractures, downsag pits with centroclinal dips
locally up to 60 degrees, pits with peripheral graben and crevasses, p
iecemeal (highly fragmented) collapse structures and funnel-shaped pit
s containing disaggregated sediment. A sequence of progressive collaps
e is inferred in which initial downsag and subsidence on an outward-di
pping ring fracture produces a small diameter pit. This is followed by
widening of the pit by progressive development of concentric ring fra
ctures and downsag outside the early formed pit, and by collapse of ov
erhanging pit walls to produce vertical to inward-dipping walls and ap
rons of collapse debris on the pit floor. The various structures have
potential for preservation even in regions prone to high rainfall and
flooding, and they can be used to indicate that former lahars containe
d abundant blocks of ice.