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Factors controlling the internal facies architecture of maar-diatreme

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DOI: 10.1007/s00445-013-0761-y

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Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
DOI 10.1007/s00445-013-0761-y
COLLECTION: MONOGENETIC VOLCANISM
Factors controlling the internal facies architecture
of maar-diatreme volcanoes
S. Kurszlaukis & A. Fulop
Received: 25 November 2012 / Accepted: 17 September 2013
# Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Abstract Most if not all kimberlite pipes show a multitude of
facies types, which imply that the pipes were emplaced under
an episodic re-occurrence of eruptive phases, often with inter-
mittent phases of volcanic quiescence. The majority of these
facies can be related to either the fragmentation behaviour of
the magma during emplacement or changing conditions dur-
ing sedimentation of volcaniclastic deposits, as well as their
alteration and compaction after deposition. An additional
factor controlling pipe-facies architecture is the degree of
mobility of the loci of explosions in the explosion chambers
of the root zone or root zones at the base of the maar-diatreme
volcano. In a growing pipe, the root zone moves downward
and, with that movement, the overlying diatreme enlarges
both in size and diameter. However, during the life span of
the volcano, the explosion chamber can also move upward,
back into the lower diatreme, where renewed explosions result
in the destruction of older deposits and their structures. Next to
vertical shifts of explosion chambers, the loci of explosions
can also move laterally along the feeder dyke or dyke swarm.
This mobility of explosion chambers results in a highly com-
plex facies architecture in which a pipe can be composed of
several separate root zones that are overlain by an amalgam-
ated, crosscutting diatreme and maar crater with several lobes.
Pipe complexity is amplified by periodic changes of the
fragmentation behaviour and explosivity of kimberlite mag-
ma. Recent mapping and logging results of Canadian and
Editorial responsibility: K. Németh, Guest Editor
This paper constitutes part of a topical collection:
Smith IEM, Nemeth K, and Ross P-S (eds) Monogenetic volcanism and
its relevance to the evolution of volcanic fields.
S. Kurszlaukis (*) : A. Fulop
De Beers Canada Inc, 250 Ferrand Drive, Suite 900, Toronto M3C
3G8, Canada
e-mail: stephan.kurszlaukis@debeerscanada.com
African kimberlite pipes suggest that kimberlite magma frag-
mentation ranges from highly explosive with abundant
entrained country rock fragments to weakly explosive
spatter-like production with scarce xenoliths. On occasions,
spatter may even reconstitute and form a texturally coherent
deposit on the crater floor. In addition, ascending kimberlite
magma can pass the loci of earlier fragmentation events in the
root zone and intrudes as coherent hypabyssal kimberlite
dykes in high pipe levels or forms extrusive lava lakes or
flows on the crater floor or the syneruptive land surface,
respectively. This highly variable emplacement behaviour is
typical for basaltic maar-diatreme volcanoes and since similar
deposits can also be found in kimberlites, it can be concluded
that also the volcanological processes leading to these deposits
are similar to the ones observed in basaltic pipes.
Keywords Kimberlite . Volcanology . Emplacement . Pipe .
Diatreme
Introduction
Maar-diatreme volcanoes are, together with scoria cones, tuff
rings, tuff cones and small shield volcanoes, the typical volca-
nic landforms that compose a continental monogenetic volcanic
field (e.g. White 1996, Thouret 1999, White and Ross 2011).
The life span of such a monogenetic field is often a few million
years (Nemeth 2010), while the volcanic activity of an individ-
ual eruptive centre is short and by some authors related to a
single volcanic event (Clement 1982; Walker 2000; Wilson and
Head 2007). Hence, these volcanic fields are often termed
“monogenetic”. However, under close examination, most if
not all maar-diatreme volcanoes show a multitude of facies
types and depositional units, suggesting that the pipes were
emplaced during episodic re-occurrence of eruptive phases,
often with intermittent phases of volcanic quiescence (e.g.
761, Page 2 of 12
Bradshaw and Smith 1994; Nemeth et al. 2003; Kurszlaukis
et al. 2009; Ross et al. 2011, Valentine and White 2012).
The majority of these facies can be related to either a
change in the fragmentation behaviour of the magma during
emplacement or are a result of changing conditions during
sedimentation of volcaniclastic deposits, as well as their alter-
ation and compaction after deposition. In addition, the lateral
and vertical mobility of the explosion sites in the root zone is
controlling pipe growth and facies distribution within the pipe.
In this study, we concentrate mainly on kimberlite pipes
since information on the internal geology of these maar-
diatreme volcanoes is accessible through drilling and mining.
However, we regard the emplacement of kimberlite pipes,
their life span, size and structure, as being comparable to intra
plate basaltic maar-diatreme volcanoes and apply the same
emplacement processes as assumed for basaltic monogenetic
volcanoes (Lorenz and Kurszlaukis 2007; Ross et al. 2011,
White and Ross 2011).
Although each volcano is unique in its detailed facies
distribution, some patterns are repetitive and allow the identi-
fication of common processes that control or influence the
facies architecture of a maar-diatreme volcano. This study
presents both primary and secondary volcanic processes that
lead to the facies distribution observed in maar-diatreme
volcanoes.
This contribution is structured in a way that first a specific
process is presented and its consequence for the facies archi-
tecture of a maar-diatreme volcano investigated. Then exam-
ples of kimberlite pipes worldwide which support the partic-
ular process are described and referenced. This method allows
us to compare the facies architecture of pipes of different
setting, size and erosion level.
Repetitive volcanic emplacement cycles
The detailed mapping of volcanic outcrops or the logging of
drill core drilled through a pipe almost always reveals a
multitude of rock types, which can be separated by, e.g.
changes in the type, abundance and size of xenoliths,
xenocrysts or juvenile components. The factors that lead to
these different rock types are related to different magma
batches feeding into the root zone at the bottom of a pipe,
variances in the fragmentation intensity or mechanism of the
magma, or a number of different processes that control pri-
mary deposition or resedimentation of a volcaniclastic depos-
it. Usually, the highest variance and complexity of volcanic
rock types can be observed in the uppermost bedded portion
of a diatreme or at the very bottom of a pipe in the root zone.
The central diatreme infill itself is often devoid of well-
defined bedding and appears massive, although large-scale
layering or grain size variations can be observed in some
pipes, as, e.g. in Venetia (Kurszlaukis and Barnett 2003).
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
Some diatremes show vertical tephra columns with slight
differences in petrographic features or diamond content
(Clement 1982). In poorly eroded pipes, the uppermost bed-
ded portion of a pipe is layered in a bowl-shaped manner,
reflecting the deposition of the beds on the crater floor (for
examples, see Orapa (Field et al. 1997) or Yubileinaya
(Kurszlaukis et al. 2009)). Often underlying this zone of
well-defined horizontal beds is another zone of block-faulted
and steeply dipping beds, which can hardly be correlated
laterally across the pipe. The transition to the underlying
massive diatreme zone is either fluent and poorly defined, or
marked by a layer of large xenolith blocks.
The presence of different rock types, structure and bedding
in a maar-diatreme volcano suggests that its emplacement
occurred over sometimes extended periods of time, with often
significant phases of inactivity in between the volcanic
phases. The latter is indicated by partly indurated
volcaniclastic deposits that were brecciated or modified in a
later volcanic event or soil horizons separating major
volcaniclastic depositional units (as observed by the authors
in several pipes of the Attawapiskat kimberlite field and Fort à
la Corne (Lefebvre and Kurszlaukis 2008)).
The volcanic phases themselves seem to follow a repetitive
emplacement pattern. They start with highly explosive erup-
tions that form relatively deep craters of several 100 m depth.
Toward the end of the eruption, the fragmentation style became
less explosive, resulting in rather low-energy volcanic activity
with little ability to brecciate country rock. During this phase,
the deep craters were filled with hot pyroclastic deposits that
often have a very low content of country-rock xenoliths. The
final phase of an eruptive cycle is commonly marked by low-
energy spatter fragmentation that produces welded pyroclastic
deposits or lava lakes (van Straaten et al. 2011; own data from
several Attawapiskat pipes; Skinner and Marsh 2004; Elley
et al. 2008; Mundula et al. 2013). Late intrusions of coherent
kimberlite sheets into older kimberlite tephra filling the pipe or
along the pipe margins are a common occurrence in the
Attawapiskat kimberlite pipes (own observations in drill core
and Victor pit). This emplacement behaviour from explosive to
low-energy spatter fragmentation and finally coherent intru-
sions can be repeated in a new eruptive cycle if a new pulse of
magma enters the pipe at its bottom. Depending on the energy
released in a subsequent emplacement cycle, earlier tephra that
filled the pipe may be completely ejected, leaving little or even
no evidence of its original existence. However, if late eruptive
cycles start with relative low energy explosions, then earlier
tephra in the pipe can survive this event and serves as a witness
to earlier volcanic activity in the pipe. Subject to the power of
the explosion(s), the position of the explosion chamber in the
pipe and vent geometry, the existing tephra becomes variably
affected by the renewed volcanic activity.
This cyclic emplacement behaviour combined with tilting due
to compaction and down rafting can in instances form internally
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
symmetric facies architecture with a cone-in-cone like arrange-
ment of volcanic deposits. The Victor NW pipe is such an
example where these emplacement sequences are repeated over
time (van Straaten et al. 2009).
Mobility of root zones and their explosion chambers
Vertical shifts of explosion sites
In some cases, abrupt vertical migration of the explosion sites
within the root zone can also add complexity to the internal
pipe architecture. Pipe growth occurs when the explosion
chambers and root zone move downwards and the overlying
diatreme expands both downward and laterally (e.g. Lorenz
and Kurszlaukis 2007). In basaltic maar-diatreme volcanoes,
this episodic growth process is typically achieved when a
vertical hydrologically active fault is cut by the feeder dyke
of the developing volcano, resulting in thermohydraulic ex-
plosions. Interacting groundwater is flash-heated and the con-
tact between magma and groundwater creates shock waves
that fragment country rocks (Zimanowski 1998). The expan-
sion of water into vapor and steam propels the fragmented
country rocks towards the surface. Vapor expansion works
best under low hydrostatic pressure and, since in most cases
the hydrostatic and lithostatic pressures are decoupled, the
ejection of groundwater during eruptions generates a cone of
depression in the groundwater table which keeps the hydro-
static pressure in the root zone low (Lorenz 1986, 1987). If the
Fig. 1 Growth of a maar-diatreme volcano. The first explosions are close
to surface and a maar develops. With the consumption of groundwater
during eruptions, a cone of depression develops in the groundwater table
Page 3 of 12, 761
amount of ejected groundwater temporarily exceeds the quan-
tity of water that enters the root zone from the aquifer or
hydrologically active faults, then the pipe can grow deeper
(Figs. 1 and 2a).
Stagnant explosion sites and emerging root zones
Explosion sites become stagnant when strong influx of external
water from a strata-bound aquifer or fault into the root zone
equals the consumption of water that is ejected by eruptions.
Explosions will still occur in the root zone but the explosion
sites do not move downwards anymore and stay in the same
depth level in the root zone. If this barrier cannot be breached,
the root zone will widen laterally (Fig. 2b). The wider the root
zone, the less impact an explosion has on the country rocks,
since the explosion chamber is surrounded and shielded in the
root zone by down dropped diatreme tephra recycled from the
overlying diatreme. Hence, these explosions will not further
deepen the pipe but will rather widen it due to the undercutting
of the sidewalls of the lower diatreme and their resulting
collapse and subsidence into the root zone (Fig. 2c). If this
lateral growth process of the pipe is terminated before its
maturity stage (i.e. entirely vertical pipe walls in the root zone
and lower diatreme), then the pipe may constrict considerably at
the root-diatreme zone transition, and the root zone itself has a
(sub-)spherical or spindle-like shape. The bulging of Tuzo pipe
at depth, a root zone in the Gahcho Kue kimberlite field, NWT,
(Seghedi et al. 2009) that constricts at the root-diatreme
and the explosion site moves deeper. A tephra-filled diatreme develops
that is overlain by a maar crater. Pipe growth ends if no water enters the
root zone any more or if magma injection into the root zone stops
761, Page 4 of 12
a b
Fig. 2 A growing maar-diatreme volcano (a) intersects a strong aquifer
and, due to the high water influx into the root zone, cannot breach this
barrier to grow any further towards depth (b). Ongoing explosions let the
transition level, is an example. Recent deep drilling of Tuzo
pipe did further refine the pipe shape at depths exceeding the
Seghedi et al. (2009) model, suggesting a spindle-like bulging
before the pipe constricts again at depth (own data).
If the root zone is active for some time at a constant depth
level, then the lower diatreme walls are undercut by the
enlarging root zone and subside into the root zone where they
are consumed by ongoing explosive activity. The resulting
mature root zone has only minor contact breccias surrounding
it and steep side walls. The root zone and lower diatreme may
form an almost cylindrical body with close to vertical walls
that, in an extreme case, will only flare toward the portion of
the upper diatreme that was originally a crater (Fig. 2d). If the
magma/water influx rate changes again later (for example if
groundwater reflux is decreased due to aquifer depletion), the
pipe can grow towards depth again and what was a mature
root zone once becomes now part of the lower diatreme. In
this event, the only evidence of a former stagnant root zone
may be the spherical bulging of the lower diatreme walls, as it
is seen in Beartooth pipe, Ekati Mine (Nowicki et al. 2003)
and A154 North, Diavik Mine (Bryan and Bonner 2003).
Victor pipe constricts significantly towards depth at the inter-
face between the Paleozoic sediments and the underlying
basement rocks (Webb et al. 2004 and own data). The pipe
wall in the sediments is very steep (in places almost vertical),
while the limited data of the rather narrow pipe shape in the
basement suggests a normal flaring of about 82°, which is also
observed in many other pipes elsewhere (e.g. Clement 1982;
Valentine and Brown 2013). The flaring of the pipe coincides
with the presence of several strong stratabound aquifers (some
of them of artesian nature) at the basement/Paleozoic interface
and also within the deeper Paleozoic cover sequence. We
interpret the change of the pipe shape as being related to the
presence of the strong aquifers in the lower Paleozoics which
made the downward growth of the pipe difficult and led to a
temporary stagnant root zone that enlarged the pipe in that
level before it grew further into the basement with less con-
ducive pipe growth conditions.
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
c d
root zone grow side wards, undercutting the overlying diatreme walls (c).
Collapse of the over-steepened lower diatreme wall rocks into the bulged
root zone results in very steep pipe walls in the lower diatreme (d)
If aquifers or hydrologically active faults become completely
depleted during volcanic activity, intruding magma can pass the
site of earlier fragmentation and forms intrusive sheets higher
within the diatreme (as, for example, seen in Victor (own data),
Venetia (Kurszlaukis and Barnett 2003), Orapa (Skinner 2009),
Premier (Skinner 2009), Tuzo (Seghedi et al. 2009), in Angolan
pipes (Elley et al. 2008) as well as in carbonatite and kimberlite
diatremes from southern Namibia (Kurszlaukis and Lorenz
1997; Kurszlaukis et al. 1998). The intrusive sheets can reach
the crater floor where they fragment in the form of spatter that
may reconstitute to lava on the maar crater floor (as seen in
Victor NW (van Straaten et al. 2011), Alpha, Delta and India
kimberlite pipes (own data) of the Attawapiskat kimberlite
field, Angolan pipes (Elley et al. 2008) and the pipes from the
basaltic volcanic field of SW Sardinia (Mundula et al. 2013).
Rising magma can also explode again in higher, cooler levels of
the pipe (Valentine and White 2012) if shallow aquifers or faults
are recharged by surface water or if magma enters the bottom of
a crater lake. However, a requirement for a thermohydraulic
explosion is the presence of liquid water or liquefied mud, so
the tephra within the pipe must have sufficiently cooled down
to not vaporize groundwater entering the diatreme from the
side. The most likely area for upward moving explosion sites
would then be the periphery of the pipe, where tephra would
cool faster than in the centre of the diatreme. If explosions
occur, the upward movement of the explosion sites forms an
emerging intra-diatreme root zone that in its essence is very
similar to a stagnant root zone. The emergence of explosion
sites into the lower diatreme will also affect its internal facies
architecture (McClintock et al. 2009), in that it will destroy all
previous structure in the surrounding area and mix and homog-
enize its tephra (Fig. 3).
Both the stagnant and the emerging root zone, especially in
its mature stage, is filled by well mixed and recycled tephra of
the overlying diatreme together with newly fragmented tephra
from kimberlite intruding the bottom of the root zone. The
tephra infill of these root zones and the related overlying
feeder conduits that cut through the older diatreme infill and
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
Fig. 3 Explosion sites can also ascend back into the diatreme where the
explosions will destroy any earlier existing litho-structure or facies defi-
nition and cause mixing of new and old tephra
form crater deposits is typically low in xenolith content since
the pipe, at this stage, does not grow by the brecciation and
ejection of new country rock areas. As an example, a late
volcaniclastic kimberlite facies in Victor Main (VMloPK,
Webb et al. 2004) is seen by us as a product of several intra-
pipe root zones that form upward-flaring feeder conduits that
ultimately grew together and formed a crater that is nested
within earlier formed, more xenolith-rich volcaniclastic kim-
berlite (VMhoPK). Although this volcaniclastic kimberlite is
extremely poor in country rock xenoliths, base surge deposits
were found in the VMloPK that testify to the presence of water
during fragmentation.
Another example of a stagnant root zone can be seen in
Bultfontein, South Africa, where the large diatreme “lacks”
a typical complex-shaped root zone at its lower end that is
filled by highly diluted kimberlite and which is surrounded
by contact breccias (Clement 1982). Instead, the steeply
cone-shaped pipe morphs to a half-bowl shaped form that
transects into its feeder dyke. This lowermost part of the
pipe is filled by xenolith-poor volcaniclastic kimberlite and
has no obvious contact breccias surrounding it. In our
interpretation, the explosion chamber of this pipe was stag-
nant for a while towards the end of the volcanic activity
forming the pipe. The lateral growth of the root zone
consumed the earlier existing contact breccias while tephra
subsiding along the sides into the root zone shielded the
country rock from the impact of highly energetic shock
waves generated in the explosion chamber, thus suppress-
ing and finally inhibiting further country rock fragmenta-
tion. As a result, the root zone grew spherically (the upper
part of the sphere is consumed by the diatreme), has an
infill of xenolith-poor volcaniclastic kimberlite and is de-
void of obvious contact breccias.
Page 5 of 12, 761
Lateral shifts of explosion sites
Next to vertical shifts of the explosion chambers in a root
zone, the root zone can also move laterally during pipe
emplacement (Ort and Carrasco-Núñez 2009; Son et al.
2012). This movement occurs either along the feeder dyke,
hydrologically active faults or zones of preferred weakness
in the country rock. As a result, a kimberlite pipe may
develop into a complex amalgamation of different individual
pipes with slightly offset root zones (e.g. pipe 5034; Hetman
et al. 2004) that may separate at depth (Fig. 4). Depending
on whether the lateral movement of the root zone is unidi-
rectional, an oval-shaped or elongated pipe at surface de-
velops. If a pipe is fed from a set of feeder dykes or grows
both in the direction of the feeder dyke and towards a
hydrologically active fault, then a complex crosscutting re-
lation of individual but amalgamated pipes can be generated.
Naturally, the internal geology of these pipes can be ex-
tremely complex, especially if no time gaps occur between
the emplacement of the individual pipes and the contact
between them is masked and modified by mixing processes
and alteration. If there is a time gap and the plumbing
system underneath such a volcanic complex is re-used, the
earlier emplaced maar-diatreme volcanoes may be partially
or fully consolidated and clearer crosscutting relations often
prevail.
A volcanic pipe that shows both evidence of consolidation
and mixing of loose tephra is Victor North. The interface
between Victor NW and Victor Main VMloPK is sharp and
steep (van Straaten et al. 2011), suggesting a time gap suffi-
ciently long for consolidation of the older tephra fill of Victor
NW, in between the individual emplacement events of these
two amalgamated volcanoes. However, diamond grade
changes within Victor Main ore imply mixing of loose tephra
from different diamond grade magma batches with very sim-
ilar petrographic features (Webb et al. 2004).
There are many more examples of kimberlite and other
pipes that have amalgamated at surface. To name some of the
examples described in literature, Jwaneng (Machin 2000) and
Orapa (Field et al. 1997) in Botswana. The Yubileinaya pipe in
Siberia consists of several pipes of variable size that grew
together at surface (Kurszlaukis et al. 2009).
Pipe infill processes
While lateral and vertical migration of explosion chambers
changes the primary internal facies distribution in a pipe,
crater infill processes also contribute significantly to the facies
architecture of a maar-diatreme volcano. Pipe infilling de-
posits record a sequence of explosive and emplacement events
suggesting a multistage infill of the volcanic crater.
761, Page 6 of 12
a b c d
B
C
A
A B C A A B C
lateral intra-pipe feeder conduit mobility
Fig. 4 The figure shows the influence of lateral movement of the explo-
sion chambers in a pipe. With no movement and ongoing eruptions, the
internal pipe architecture is overall symmetrical (a). With variable but
minor lateral movement, the feeder conduits of tephra jets become slight-
ly offset causing an asymmetrical arrangement of the conduits (b, c; see
also plan view in top row). The root zone may split up, but feeds into the
same diatreme. If root zones are completely separated but in close
proximity, the diatremes can still intersect each other close to the land
Stages of pipe infill
The syn-eruptive crater
A syn-eruptive crater is a maar crater that experiences primary
pyroclastic deposition mixed with intermittent phases of
resedimentation from the maar crater collar and surrounding
tephra ring. Depending on the force and volume of the ejected
eruption columns, primary sedimentation of pyroclastic de-
posits may be the prevailing process that controls the crater
infill. This is often especially true in the initial stages of crater
infill, following the main eruptive phase during which no
stable crater floor was present or preserved (as an example,
see Kurszlaukis et al. 2009) on the emplacement sequence of
pipe Yubileinaya in Siberia).
Pipes with small diameters and steep walls offer only
narrow and short conduits for pyroclastic clouds that are
produced in the root zones of these pipes and rise upward.
Depending on the force of the explosion, the expanding and
rising pyroclastic cloud in the feeder conduit may be able to
affect much or all of the overlying diatreme tephra and clear
the diatreme of a pre-existing tephra pile (in this case, the
crater would extend down into the root zone) (Fig. 5a). If the
explosive force is not strong enough to clear the entire pipe,
the pre-existing diatreme tephra is at least affected in a way
that many or some of the older structures existing in the tephra
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
e
block-in-grain mixing grain-in-grain mixing
B
A B
A
indura- loose
ted
lateral extra-pipe root zone mobility
surface. If the older cut diatreme is already indurated, blocks of diatreme
material may litter into the younger pipe (d). A block-in-grain mixing
zone develops. If the older pipe is still composed of loose tephra, the
younger pipe will flare at the intersect with the younger pipe and tephra of
both diatremes will mix on a grain-in-grain mixing basis (e). Defining the
kind of mixing is important for the evaluation of the economics of a
diamondiferous kimberlite deposit
are destroyed. Existing beds may, at least locally, become
fluidized by the upward-streaming volcanic gases and ash
originally present in the tephra can be lost by elutriation
(Sparks et al. 2006; Walters et al. 2006; Lorenz and
Kurszlaukis 2007; Kurszlaukis and Lorenz 2008). In some
emplacement models, with a decrease in the ascent velocity of
the eruption column, larger clasts may not be able to leave the
vent and settle in the upward-streaming gas and particle
stream until finally the eruption column collapses and the vent
is filled with backfill of the eruption clouds (Cas et al. 2008;
Porritt and Cas 2009, 2011). As a result, this early, primary
pyroclastic deposit should represent a single mega-graded bed
filling a narrow, steep-sided diatreme but neither the process
of formation nor the pyroclastic deposit itself has yet been
observed in nature. Another scenario is the occurrence of
repetitive smaller pyroclastic bursts that were not strong
enough to evacuate the entire vent fill but rather modified it
in a way that new material (both fragmented country rock and
juvenile matter) was added to pre-existing tephra in the
lower diatreme and mixed with it. This leads to an overall
homogenized lower diatreme infill, which (especially in
larger pipes) can still show traces of the last pyroclastic
clouds that traveled through the lower diatreme infill—
often expressed as inhomogeneous diamond distribution in
between vertical tephra columns in large South African
diatremes (Clement 1982).
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
Fig. 5 Relation of pipe geometry
to feeder conduit width and
deposition on the crater floor. In
narrow pipes, it is easier for an
eruption to clear the pipe infill
partly or completely (a).
Deposition would in this case be
mainly on the tephra ring or
through massive backfill into the
pipe during the waning stage of a
major eruption. In large pipes, the
ratio between vent size and crater
diameter is much smaller and the
crater floor itself serves as a major
depot centre (b)
a b
Larger craters usually have deep, tephra-filled diatremes
underneath them. The diameter of a post-eruptive maar crater
typically ranges between 200 and 1,500 m (Ross et al. 2011),
while the depth of a large diatreme may exceed 2 km (e.g.
Clement 1982). The relatively weak explosions occurring in the
late volcanic stage of a “dying” volcano (Kurszlaukis et al.
2009) will in many cases produce gas (vapor)-solid mixtures
that are not able to pierce the diatreme fill overlying the root
zone, but which will get stuck in the diatreme tephra
(Kurszlaukis and Lorenz 2008; Valentine and White 2012).
Only the gas-solid mixtures generated in stronger explosions
will have enough force to pierce through the diatreme infill
where they form relatively narrow feeder conduits (Ross and
White 2006; Ross et al. 2008; Kurszlaukis et al. 2009;
McClintock et al. 2009) (Fig. 5b). The vent in the crater floor
is the surface expression of a feeder conduit where the rising
gas-solid mixture reaches the atmosphere and exits the feeder
conduit as a pyroclastic cloud. Depending on the size of the
vent in relation to the diameter of the crater floor, much of the
crater floor may actually be preserved and unaffected by the
generation of the vent and can serve as depocentre for the
pyroclastic deposits generated during eruption column collapse.
In small and narrow craters, the collapse of eruption col-
umns will produce massive or crudely bedded deposits on the
crater floor. Although there may be some grain-size variation
on a vertical scale due to fluctuations in the settling rate from
the eruption column, grain-size sorting hardly appears on a
lateral scale, since the walls of the narrow crater reflect parti-
cles and mix them back into the turbulent depositional caul-
dron. Only larger craters allow for the lateral escape of base-
surges across the crater floor. These larger craters hence may
show a zonal facies distribution around a vent in the crater
floor, with coarse-grained, massive to crudely bedded deposits
proximal to the vent, and better sorted, finer-grained base
Page 7 of 12, 761
surge and fallout deposits in distal areas. It is important to
realize that the grain-size distribution in a syn-eruptive crater
is (with exceptions) opposite to that in a post-eruptive crater
that is dominated by resedimentation processes. Coarse oliv-
ines (and large diamonds) are concentrated near the vent in
syn-eruptive craters, whereas in post-eruptive craters, coarse
olivine is most common in deposits close to the crater wall and
especially in grain flows shed from the tephra ring back into
the crater (Lefebvre and Kurszlaukis 2008).
Individual pyroclastic beds are originally deposited more
or less horizontally on the crater floor. However, buried pyro-
clastic beds deeper in the pipe often show tilting and bedding
angles much steeper than the angle of repose (some beds may
even dip vertically). Tilting normally affects a package of
beds, suggesting that they were tilted after deposition in the
form of (semi-)consolidated blocks. The contacts between the
blocks are discordant or marked by soft sediment structures.
The dip directions of the beds often point radially toward a
certain area of the pipe, commonly in its centre. The reason for
this post-depositional re-arrangement of blocks is three-fold:
on the one hand it is due to simple compaction of initially
loosely packed tephra (Moore et al. 1992), which is more
efficient in the centre of the pipe compared to its margin. A
pipe with a carrot-shaped morphology has a taller tephra
column in its centre compared to its margin where the tephra
column is short. At the same rate of compaction, the centre
column will compact more than a tephra pile located along the
margin, leading to differential tilting between the centre and
the margin of a pipe (Fig. 6a). The second reason is that, with
each explosion in the root zone and eruption of a tephra cloud
into the atmosphere, diatreme tephra overlying the root zone
will subside into the evacuated explosion chamber (Lorenz
and Kurszlaukis 2007). Similar to compaction, the area of the
pipe that is most affected by subsidence is the central area
761, Page 8 of 12
a b
Fig. 6 Processes that can cause subsidence and tilting of rocks. a The
tephra column in the centre of the pipe is taller compared to the margin of
the pipe, where tephra thickness is limited by the angled pipe wall. With
the same rate of compaction, a particle will subside more in the centre of
which is, in a symmetric pipe, directly above the root zone.
Tephra closer to the pipe walls does not subside to the same
extent as in its centre, leading to slumping and differential
subsidence (Fig. 6b). A last cause is that the passage of tephra
jets and the subsequent collapse of the feeder conduit will lead
to mass collapse of the feeder conduit walls into the void space
of the emptied feeder conduit, also causing subsidence and
tilting preferentially in the central areas of the pipe (Fig. 6c)
(see Kurszlaukis et al. 2009). While many feeder conduits
emerge vertically from their source area (the root zone of a
pipe), and are therefore located in the centre of a symmetric
pipe, some feeder conduits also chose the interface between
the volcaniclastic diatreme infill and the pipe wall as their
ascent paths, exploiting a zone of weakness. The latter can be
seen in Venetia K2, where a feeder conduit occurs asymmet-
rically to the side of the pipe (Kurszlaukis and Barnett 2003;
Brown et al. 2009).
Resedimentation into the syn-eruptive crater occurs syn-
chronously with primary pyroclastic depositional processes.
Widening of the diatreme is a consequence of sidewall erosion
by pyroclastic clouds in small and narrow pipes and gravita-
tional collapse in pipes of all sizes. Large chunks of country
rock can separate from the maar crater collar and collapse onto
the crater floor where they form massive rock avalanche
deposits or they are preserved as floating reefs in the diatreme
if they are formed by intra-diatreme gravitational collapse of
the side wall. In the syn-eruptive crater, the preservation
potential of resedimented volcaniclastic material is minute in
small, highly energetic juvenile maar craters but becomes
larger in bigger craters or in mature syn-eruptive craters where
the primary volcanic activity has almost ceased and
resedimentation processes are the dominant infill mechanism.
The post-eruptive crater
In the post-eruptive crater, the primary volcanic activity has
ceased and the infill of the maar crater is entirely controlled by
resedimentation processes from the maar crater collar and
surrounding tephra ring. In the following context, we use the
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
c
the pipe. b Tephra in the centre of the pipe subsides into the partially
evacuated root zone, which also affects beds in the central area of the
crater. c Collapse of side-wall material into an evacuated feeder conduit
causes subsidence of the vent-proximal crater floor
term “relief energy” as the ratio between the relative altitude
(the altitude between the highest and lowest point a particle
travels during resedimentation into a crater) and its lateral
travel distance (definition modified from Nir (1957) and
Thouret (1999)). A crater with high relief energy is deep and
steep, while a crater with low relief energy is shallow and has
gently dipping slopes. Depending on the relief energy of the
crater, three stages of crater infill can be differentiated:
1. The juvenile crater
The excavation of the pipe through high-energy explo-
sions produces a deep maar crater that initially can be few
hundred metres deep (Fig. 7a). The pre-erosional depths
of the juvenile crater can be inferred with some confi-
dence for pipe Yubileinaya (550 m; Kurszlaukis et al.
2009), Orapa (500 m; Field et al. 1997), Mwadui
(230 m; Stiefenhofer and Farrow 2004) and 400 m for
Tango Extension in the Attawapiskat kimberlite Field,
Ontario (own data). Bedded crater floor material is ob-
served down to depths of at least 600 m in Jwaneng
(Machin 2000). The depth of craters above large kimber-
lite pipes thus appears to be significantly deeper than
those reported from non-kimberlite systems (Ross et al.
2011). The latter authors propose a diameter to depth ratio
between 3 and 5 for mostly basaltic maar craters, while
our data suggest that the ratio in large kimberlite craters
fluctuates around 1.
The walls of such a deep juvenile maar crater are over
steepened and unstable and have thus high relief energy.
En masse resedimentation processes prevail during pipe
emplacement and immediately after eruptions cease or
become weaker. Hence the first sediments deposited on
a post-eruptive crater floor are commonly the result of
mass movements from coarse debris avalanche deposits
including the whole spectrum of cohesive to diluted sed-
iment gravity flows. In the juvenile crater, the re-
sedimented material is dominated by country rock debris
that is mixed or interlayered with tephra from the maar
crater rim (Fig. 7b). These gravitational collapse events
fill the crater quickly and will also decrease the angle of
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
a b
c d
Fig. 7 Development of the post-eruptive crater. In a juvenile stage, the
crater is deep and over steepened (a), resedimentation onto the crater
floor is dominated by mass collapse from the maar crater collar and
overlying tephra ring (b). Resedimentation in the mature crater causes
erosion of the tephra ring, shallowing of the crater slope and a reduction in
the still exposed maar crater, resulting in an increasingly
shallow but wider mature crater with lower relief energy.
2. The mature crater
The widening of the crater results in less and finer
kimberlite tephra sourced from the more distal tephra ring
being resedimented into the crater (Fig. 7c). The relief
energy of the crater is reduced due to the incremental
decrease of the angle of the crater slope and synchronous
shallowing of the crater.
Since most maar craters cut below the groundwater
table, the crater fills quickly with water and a crater lake
will develop. Sorting processes will show significant lat-
eral differences between coarse grained deposits proximal
to the pipe wall and finer grained deposits in the central
area of the crater (Fig. 7d).
3. The remnant crater
A crater that has all tephra originally deposited in the
tephra ring removed may still be a depocentre for back-
ground sedimentation that is unrelated to primary volcanic
activity that created the crater (Fig. 7e). Compaction of the
Page 9 of 12, 761
relief energy. A crater lake develops (c) and the crater infill becomes
increasingly fine-grained and kimberlite depleted (d). In its final stage,
the tephra ring is entirely eroded and the remnant crater filled by back-
ground sedimentation (e)
tephra and sediment pile in the diatreme leads to subsidence
of the post-eruptive, buried crater for a long time, possibly
up to several million years (Suhr et al. 2006). On the
surface, these remnant craters are only traceable by their
lakes or bogs that still suggest a depression of the land
surface and ongoing subsidence of the diatreme fill.
Discussion
Most kimberlite pipes show clear evidence of a multistage
emplacement process, with some significant time gaps in
between the single volcanic events. The volcanic activity led
to the generation of pipes of variable size with a complex
internal arrangement of lithofacies. For example, the
Attawapiskat pipes are different in pipe size, morphology
and facies architecture to pipes from the Fort a la Corne
(FALC) kimberlite field, Saskatchewan, Canada, or the large
kimberlite pipes of Southern Africa or Siberia.
761, Page 10 of 12
The pipes of the FALC field form mostly pancake-shaped
craters without larger diatremes as a volcanic substructure
underneath them. The maar craters and tuff cones are
emplaced into Cretaceous loose sands from a tidal flat envi-
ronment with ongoing background sedimentation (Leckie
et al. 1997; Berryman et al. 2004; Zonneveld et al. 2004;
Kjarsgaard et al. 2006). The internal facies architecture is
comparable to a layer cake structure with a coarsening of the
sediments close to the feeder vents (Lefebvre and Kurszlaukis
2008). Several closely spaced eruptive centres grew together
to form complex amalgamated craters and tuff cones (Leckie
et al. 1997; Zonneveld et al. 2004; Kjarsgaard et al. 2006;
Lefebvre and Kurszlaukis 2008).
The larger kimberlite pipes of Southern Africa and Siberia
(for example), in contrast, form deep and steep, carrot-shaped
kimberlite pipes. Their lower diatremes are mostly filled by
superficially massive ash and lapilli tuffs. Maar-diatreme vol-
canoes with little erosion still show variably preserved rem-
nants of well-bedded volcaniclastic sediments that were orig-
inally sedimented onto the crater floors of the maar craters
(Field et al. 1997; Kurszlaukis and Barnett 2003; Gernon et al.
2009; Kurszlaukis et al. 2009). The massive volcanic deposits
filling the lower diatreme portion of the pipes show a specific
fines-depleted texture and comprise a particular pyroclast type
that is by some authors deemed diagnostic for a magmatic
emplacement process. However, under close examination,
these “tuffisitic” deposits are often not homogenous but show
an arrangement of “columns” that is seen in the lateral varia-
tions of diamonds within the tuffisitic kimberlites, and also
from slight petrographic variations of the volcaniclastic de-
posits (Clement 1982). We interpret these columns as tephra
jets that pierced through lower diatreme tephra and mixed
with it.
Some authors group kimberlite deposits into three classes,
depending on the dominant type of volatiles (CO2 and H2O)
contained in the ascending magma and the resulting mineral-
ogy and interpreted ability of the magmas to reach the surface
(Skinner and Marsh 2004). The differences in pipe morphol-
ogy, internal facies architecture and mineralogy are by these
authors attributed to differences in the depth of explosive
degassing, resulting in variances in the emplacement behav-
iour and consequently variably-shaped kimberlite pipes.
While we acknowledge the differences in pipe morphology
and internal facies architecture, we do not think that pipes can
or should be grouped into classes with a fixed pipe morphol-
ogy, internal facies architecture, or emplacement mechanism.
All features observed in the pipes or used for their grouping
into classes can be readily explained in the phreatomagmatic
emplacement model (which includes phases of low-energy,
magmatic fragmentation). We see the differences rather as a
function of variations in the reflux ratio of water and magma
to the root zone, as well as the degree of consolidation of the
country rock substrate at the time of emplacement.
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
The FALC maars and tuff rings are the typical products of
volcanism where magma intruded into soft substrate with a
high groundwater reflux rate (so called “soft substrate maars”;
Auer et al. 2007; Lorenz 2008; Ross et al. 2011). The typical
volcanic landforms generated in such an environment are
maar craters as well as tuff rings and cones. Due to the high
water reflux rate in the tidal environment at FALC, the root
zone could not move down and hence no large diatremes
developed. Only when the tephra ring surrounding a crater
was massive enough to shield the crater from sea water, the
conditions in the soft substrate were dry enough to develop a
small diatreme, as seen in the Star kimberlite (Zonneveld et al.
2004; Harvey et al. 2009).
The hydrogeological situation was different in the southern
African Karroo basin, where the often poorly indurated sedi-
mentary country rocks themselves worked as stratabound
aquifers or they were so well jointed that otherwise aquiclude
basalt layers functioned as aquifers at the time of emplacement
of the kimberlite pipes. Pipes that intersect basement rocks
received their groundwater, which served as a coolant during
thermohydraulic explosions, from faults and contact breccias
surrounding the root zone and lower diatreme. Kurszlaukis
and Barnett (2003) showed that a “classic” southern African
kimberlite pipe (Venetia) containing tuffisitic kimberlite is
located on a fault zone that was likely hydrologically active
during emplacement. Key to the understanding of these south-
ern African pipes is also that large pipes are only formed if the
magma/water reflux rate is optimal and constant over time and
if just enough water is available that the root zone can move
downwards and the pipe can grow. There is also a high
abundance of small pipes that are emplaced at the same time
and in the same field as their large southern African relatives.
These pipes did not experience the same optimal growth
conditions as large pipes did and thus did not develop to their
full size. However, since mining (and academic attention)
concentrates on the large pipes, the bias in literature is toward
the large pipes, developing the erroneous picture that all
kimberlite pipes in southern Africa are large in size.
While we believe that each pipe has its individual morphol-
ogy and architecture originating from a multitude of highly
variable processes, a classification that would make sense to us
is one that accounts for the groundwater access conditions during
the emplacement of a pipe. A class “A” pipe should be seen as a
pipe to which groundwater has had constantly access to the root
zone via vertical faults or very thick stratabound aquifers. Influx
of groundwater and magma into the root zone was in an optimal
ratio over a prolonged period of time, enabling the pipe to grow
large. A class “B” pipe is emplaced into (unconsolidated) sub-
strate with a high groundwater reflux rate that has not allowed
substantial downward pipe growth. In class “C” pipes, ground-
water has access only over rather thin stratabound aquifers, with
aquiclude or aquitard strata in between the aquifers. The latter
pipes are often smaller and complex in their facies architecture.
Bull Volcanol (2013) 75:761
Conclusions
The complexity of the facies distribution encountered in most
maar-diatreme volcanoes suggests a multi-stage emplacement
process with intermittent periods of volcanic inactivity. The
vertical and lateral mobility of explosion sites as well as
differential compaction and subsidence control the facies dis-
tribution within deeper levels of the pipe. Primary pyroclastic
deposition on the crater floor and resedimentation from the
maar crater rim control the facies distribution of the syn- and
post-eruptive crater. The alternation of magmatic eruptions
with phreatomagmatic explosions results in variations in the
efficiency of magma fragmentation as well as the explosive
energy that is available to brecciate country rocks.
The combination of magma/water reflux rates and their
fluctuations together with the degree of induration of the
country rocks and their hydrogeological conductivity are the
main factors controlling pipe growth. The grouping of pipes
into certain “classes” should, if needed at all, rather be guided
by these factors instead of assuming fundamentally different
pipe emplacement mechanisms.
Acknowledgments We want to thank our friends and colleagues in the
kimberlite community for the many fruitful discussions we had with
them. The two reviewers of the initial manuscript are thanked for the
constructive comments and suggestions which improved the paper. The
editorial board members are greatly appreciated for their assistance. De
Beers Canada Inc is thanked for the support we received and access to a
wealth of data. The first author wants to specifically thank Volker Lorenz,
for his friendship and mentorship over the years.
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