Landform Variability in the Chaine Des Puys Tracing Multiple Processes

Abstract:

The Chaîne des Puys is a highly varied, type monogenetic field, and was acknowledged by 38^th WH UNESCO Committee to contain Outstanding Universal Value. The Chaîne des Puys - Limagne Fault should be presented in 2016 for World Heritage Status. The 30 km long Chaîne des Puys contains ranges from simple basaltic scoria cones to complex, multicrater cones, and small simple domes to complicated trachytic edifices. There is also a range of phreatomagmatic landforms from tuff rings to maars and vulcanian to sub plinian deposits. There is a wide range of pahoehoe and aa lava types, that have flowed over different topographies. Here we take morphometrical data to analyse the variability of the edifices using a 10 m regional topographic DTM. The volcanoes form a broad continuum of morphological features, and height/widths of domes and cones overlap. Some edifices, are smooth and elliptical, even though they have erupted complex lava sequences, while others complex shapes, but are related to simple lava flows. There seems to be no easy correlation between cone morphology and eruption histories derived from lava fields and distal tephras. In the few cones where the interior is visible, the shape of the cone is seen to vary with changing eruption events. The final shape is a combination of changing activity, with the last events having the strongest morphometic signature. The broad variations in edifice, lava field, and deposit morphology are described and quantified, however it becomes clear from the few individual eruptions already studied, that to fully appreciate the range of monogenetic eruption scenarios presented by the Chaîne des Puys, much more detailed work is required. This is being made possible by new acquisitions of LiDAR imagery, new geophysical work, and the combination of excellent preservation and extensive outcrop that is partly the result the original geology and long term responsible land management by the local populace, regional park and local government.