Misema Caldera | |
|---|---|
 Map of the Blake River Megacaldera Complex. Misema Caldera is highlighted in red. | |
| Location | Ontario-Quebec, Canada |
| Range | Canadian Shield |
| Age | 2,704-2,707 MYA |
| Volcanic arc/belt | Blake River Megacaldera Complex |
The Misema Caldera is a 2,704-2,707 million year old caldera in Ontario and Quebec, Canada.
It is the caldera that forms the Blake River Megacaldera Complex [1] and has a diameter of 40-80 kilometres.
The caldera is also a coalescence of at least two large mafic shield volcanoes that formed more than 2703 million years ago. [2] The rim of the Misema Caldera contains a 10-15 kilometre wide inner and outer ring zone, in which many mafic ring dike complexes and subaqueous pyroclastic sediments are detected.
The mafic ring dike structures may be deeper level expressions of summit calderas related to a shield volcano phase while the pyroclastic fragments could either be associated with satellite cones or the result of Misema caldera collapse. [2]
Misema Caldera is the oldest and largest caldera associated with the Blake River Megacaldera Complex and is comparable in size to Lake Toba caldera in Indonesia. [2]
A caldera is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the structural integrity of such a chamber, greatly diminishing its capacity to support its own roof, and any substrate or rock resting above. The ground surface then collapses into the emptied or partially emptied magma chamber, leaving a large depression at the surface. Although sometimes described as a crater, the feature is actually a type of sinkhole, as it is formed through subsidence and collapse rather than an explosion or impact. Compared to the thousands of volcanic eruptions that occur over the course of a century, the formation of a caldera is a rare event, occurring only a few times within a given window of 100 years. Only eight caldera-forming collapses are known to have occurred between 1911 and 2018, with a caldera collapse at Kīlauea, Hawaii in 2018. Volcanoes that have formed a caldera are sometimes described as "caldera volcanoes".
Medicine Lake Volcano is a large shield volcano in northeastern California about 30 mi (50 km) northeast of Mount Shasta. The volcano is located in a zone of east-west crustal extension east of the main axis of the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the Cascade Range. The 0.6 mi (1 km) thick shield is 22 mi (35 km) from east to west and 28 to 31 mi from north to south, and covers more than 770 sq mi (2,000 km2). The underlying rock has downwarped by 0.3 mi (0.5 km) under the center of the volcano. The volcano is primarily composed of basalt and basaltic andesite lava flows, and has a 4.3 by 7.5 mi caldera at the center.
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Volcanic activity is a major part of the geology of Canada and is characterized by many types of volcanic landform, including lava flows, volcanic plateaus, lava domes, cinder cones, stratovolcanoes, shield volcanoes, submarine volcanoes, calderas, diatremes, and maars, along with less common volcanic forms such as tuyas and subglacial mounds.
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The Blake River Megacaldera Complex is a giant subaqueous caldera cluster or a nested caldera system that spans across the Ontario–Quebec border in Canada.
The New Senator Caldera is a large Archean caldera complex within the heart of the Blake River Megacaldera Complex, Quebec, Canada. It has a diameter of 15-30 kilometers and is made of thick massive mafic sequences. The caldera complex has inferred to be a subaqueous lava lake during the early stages of the caldera's development. Gabbro sills represent lava lakes, which are common in mafic summit calderas. These subaqueous lava lakes are large units with a change in grain size from coarse to fine grained and a hyaloclastite top. The Kiwanis (Norands) intrusion, a high-level synvolcanic magma chamber, intrudes felsic rocks, and is in turn cross-cut by basaltic dikes and sills.
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