flood basalt

British

noun

a very extensive lava flow of basaltic composition that has issued from a fissure, often to be found as part of a series of such flows one on top of another, forming a plateau See fissure eruption

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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"Based on the Hg-isotope variations we were able to link an initial pulse in Hg enrichment at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary to the emission of mercury from flood basalt volcanism," Wang Zheng explains.

From Science Daily • Apr. 30, 2024

Another big event at this time was the Deccan Traps flood basalt volcanism in India.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2017

Thus these normally quiet flood basalt lavas carried and released a world of trouble into the end-Permian atmosphere.

From Slate • Jul. 31, 2015

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023