Flood basalts form thick piles of basaltic lava flows of vast areal extent (often exceeding 100,000 km2) and volume (exceeding 100,000 km3), usually on continental crust. Individual flows may be very voluminous, both exceeding 20 m in thickness, and covering more than 1,000 km2 (Table 1). Individual lava plateaus are usually associated with within-plate hot spots or intraplate rifting (or both) and have a number of features in common.
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© 1989 Van Nostrand Reinhold
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Park, A.F. (1989). Flood basalt . In: Petrology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30845-8_71
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