NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SALT DEPOSITS AROUND THE CRATER OF EREBUS VOLCANO, ANTARCTICA
She will never read this, But she was the main outlet for stress relief during the process. Salt deposits are widespread around the summit crater of the active 3794meter high Erebus volcano in Antarctica. The distribution, composition and formation of the salts provide insight into the interaction o...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.210.9181 http://www.ees.nmt.edu/outside/alumni/papers/2011t_kammerer_mm.pdf |
| Summary: | She will never read this, But she was the main outlet for stress relief during the process. Salt deposits are widespread around the summit crater of the active 3794meter high Erebus volcano in Antarctica. The distribution, composition and formation of the salts provide insight into the interaction of the gas plume with the snow and rocks around the summit crater. The greatest salt accumulations are located within 1 km of the active crater and are found under rocks and in crevices in the lava flows as white to yellow incrustations, massive deposits, efflorescences, and needles. Salt deposits are most abundant downwind of the crater where individual salt accumulations of 20 grams or more are common. The salts are not associated with fumaroles or fumarolic ice towers but form under the ambient-15 to-65 o C temperatures. XRD analyses of Erebus salts has led to the positive identification of alunite, calcite, gypsum, halite, khademite, mirabilite, ralstonite, sylvite, and thenardite, along with numerous tentatively identified phases. New salt phases identified in this study include rancieite, katoite, and potassian-halite. SEM observations indicate that the salts are well crystallized on a very fine scale, with crystal size ranging between 1 to 20 microns. One of the most common crystal habits consists of well-formed fiberous habit, although angular, cubic, hexagonal, needle, rectangular, spindle, stacked plate, and sub-angular habitss are also observed, along with cauliflowerand shark-tooth textures. Multiple salt morphologies are present in each sample. Qualitative electron microprobe chemical scans indicate that a wide range of |
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