Lava channel of Khedrai Dam, northeast of nasik in western Deccan Volcanic province: Detailed morphology and evidences of channel reactivation

The 120 m-wide Khedrai Dam lava channel is one of the widest recorded in the Deccan Volcanic Province. Like many recent ones, this channel also has a pair of linear marginal levees made of breccia and confines the channelfill lava. It is resting over a pahoehoe flow (substrate) of basalt studded with plagioclase megacrysts, also known as the Giant Plagioclase Basalt (GPB). The channel-fill lava, which makes the lining at the edges and basal portion of the channel, is a comb-layered basalt (Cl-B) characterized by alternating layers rich in curved, branching augite crystals and laths of plagioclase — a texture indicative of high order of supercooling and rapid cooling rates. The dominant and centrally filling lava of this channel is a plagioclase-phyric basalt (Pp-B) that has a wide variation in phenocryst number from megacryst-poor to megacryst-rich. Occurrence of centimetre to decimetre size angular fragments of Cl-B within Pp-B fill indicates mechanical dislodgements of channel-lining by flowing lava. This also suggests that the channel was reactivated before it finally lost its hydraulic gradient and solidified.