Characteristics of hydrothermal eruptions, with examples from New Zealand and elsewhere

Abstract Hydrothermal eruptions have occurred in many hot water geothermal fields. This paper concentrates on examples from New Zealand but also mentions others elsewhere, which demonstrate points of particular interest. Numerous small eruptions (maximum focal depths of about 90 m) have occurred in historic times (past 150 years) at Wairakei/Tauhara, Rotorua, Tikitere, Ngatamariki, Mokai and Waimangu. The presence of breccia deposits shows that much larger (with estimated maximum focal depths of about 450 m), prehistoric hydrothermal eruptions have also occurred at Kawerau, Wairakei, Tikitere, Orakeikorako, Te Kopia, Rotokawa and Waiotapu. One of the largest known hydrothermal eruptions in New Zealand took place at Rotokawa 6060±60 years ago; this produced a deposit that extended over an area with a diameter of 4 km, and has a maximum thickness of 11 m. Deposits from hydrothermal eruptions are typically very poorly sorted, matrix-supported, and may contain hydrothermally altered clasts that derive from within the geothermal reservoir. Their lithologies and alteration mineralogies are useful guides to subsurface conditions. Hydrothermal eruptions do not require any direct input of either mass or energy derived directly from a magma and, thus, differ from both phreatic and phreatomagmatic eruptions. Many hydrothermal eruptions in a hot water field start very close to the ground surface and result from the rapid formation of steam due to a sudden pressure reduction. This steam provides the energy necessary to brecciate, lift and eject fragments of the host rocks as a flashing front descends and water nearby in the reservoir boils. A rock brecciation zone accompanies this front, and both precede the descent of the eruption surface. A hydrothermal eruption continues until the steam is produced too slowly to lift the brecciated rocks. There is no genetic difference between the small eruptions induced by exploitation and those which occur as a geothermal system evolves naturally and whose effects may penetrate to much greater depths. Hydrothermal eruptions do not need the presence of either field-wide cap rocks or pressures within a reservoir that exceed that provided by a hydrostatic column of water very close to its boiling temperature.

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