Earth:Volcanic plateau

Short description: Plateau produced by volcanic activity

Rangipo Desert of the North Island Volcanic Plateau. Numerous tephra layers are visible.

A volcanic plateau is a plateau produced by volcanic activity. There are two main types: lava plateaus and pyroclastic plateaus.

Lava plateau

The Pajarito Plateau in New Mexico, United States is an example of a volcanic plateau

Perhaps the most extensive of all the subaerial basaltic plateaus existed during the Paleogene and possibly extended over 1,800,000 km² (690,000 sq mi) of the northern Atlantic Ocean region. This region, known as the Thulean Plateau, is generally believed to have been broken up by foundering of the Earth's crust to form the present ocean basin.

Earth features numerous subaerial and submarine volcanic plateaus such as the Columbia River Plateau (subaerial) and the vast Ontong Java Plateau (submarine).

Pyroclastic plateau

Pyroclastic plateaus are produced by massive pyroclastic flows. They are underlain by pyroclastic rocks: agglomerates, tephra, volcanic ashes cemented into tuffs, mafic or felsic. Pyroclastic plateaus are also called ignimbrite plateaus.

Examples include Shirasu-Daichi which covers almost all of southern Kyūshū, Japan and the North Island Volcanic Plateau in New Zealand.

See also

• Earth:Lava field – Large, mostly flat area of lava flows