Volcanic plateau up by foundering of the Earth's crust to form the present ocean basin. The Earth features numerous subaerial and submarine volcanic plateaus such as the Columbia River Plateau (subaerial) and the vast Ontong Java Plateau (submarine). Pyroclastic plateaus are produced by massive pyroclastic flows and they are underlain by pyroclastic rocks: agglomerates, tephra, volcanic ashes cemented into tuffs, mafic or felsic. Examples include Shirasu-Daichi which covers almost all of Southern Kyūshū, Japan and the North Island Volcanic Plateau in New Zealand. Volcanic plateau A volcanic plateau is a plateau produced by volcanic activity. There are two main types: lava plateaus
Archean felsic volcanic rocks composition of Archean felsic volcanic rocks are in the calc-alkaline series. Such magmatic series indicates thatfractional crystallisation of magma occurs during cooling. Low magnesium and iron content in the rock and forms dacite or rhyolite. Magma is a mixture of various minerals. When minerals crystallise from the molten magma, they are progressively removed and dissociated from the melt. The last proportion of the melt is strongly fractionated, causing richness in quartz and feldspars that make the volcanic rocks felsic. Dacite and rhyolite are characterised by high silica (SiO) content from 62 to 78 wt%. The average composition of felsic volcanic