Vesicle cylinders are vertical pipes filled with bubbles and residual melt that differentiate from diktytaxitic basalt flows during crystallization. They grow from about 0.25 m above the base of the flow to the bottom of the chilled flow top. Field relations limit their growth to the period between cessation of lava movement and deep penetration of columnar joints. Basalts containing vesicle cy...

We examine the role that flood basalt eruptions may have played during times of mass extinction through the release of volcanic gases. Continental flood basalt provinces have formed by numerous eruptions over a short period of geologic time, characteristically a fewmillion years.Within this period, a short-lived climactic phase that lasts about 1Ma typically emplaces a large proportion of the l...

A centuries old lava flow, spreading from the base of the now dormant Khorgo volcano in Central Mongolia, seems an unlikely place to find history lessons. However, on spotting it, Amy Hessl wanted to explore. In this lava flow, Hessl supposed, could be clues to how, many centuries ago, a small band of nomadic horsemen took overmost of the easternworld. “We were driving by on our way to a differ...