Rhyolitic volcanic corridors in magmatic arcs: comparing North Wales and North Island, New Zealand

Exceptionally voluminous arc-related rhyolitic eruptions from clusters of caldera complexes, as seen in Snowdonia, North Wales (mid-Caradoc), and North Island, New Zealand (late Neogene-Quaternary), are characteristically confined within transient, fault-controlled corridors in continental crust. New Zealand rhyolitic corridors (Coromandel, Central, Taupo) have developed in response to the spearheading of an oceanic arc into continental crust, combined with subduction rollback-induced extension during clockwise rotation pivoting around central North Island. Inherited high heat flow from earlier arc magmatism, intracrustal plastic deformation, and mantle-derived magma ponding and fractionation beneath a less dense, fracture-toughened crust, all contribute synergistically to crustal fusion and catastrophic volcanism. A similar scenario is suggested for the Snowdonia volcanic corridor where at least six major rhyolitic centres were restricted in space and time (Soudleyan-Woolstonian). After the climactic Snowdonian eruptions, arc magmatism was extinguished in Wales: a fate predicted for New Zealand rhyolitic volcanism as subduction rollback continues.