• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.151-164
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• 2011

Mineralogical and petrological characteristics were investigated on matrix of dense gray, vesiculate gray, brown and black pumice in Ulleung Island by using XRD, FT-IR, XRF, SEM and thermal analysis. According to the analysis, most of pumice matrix are amorphous and include very small amount of sanidine and anorthoclase. Since the adsorption moistures, which commonly observed as O-H peak in FT-IR spectrum, are not identified in thermal analysis, it seems reasonable to conclude that content of the adsorption moisture has very low level. Although pumice has a large specific surface area, with long time elapsed after eruption, pumice matrix shows very low degree of hydration alteration due to the low level of water content. In SEM images, most surfaces of pumice show morphological characteristics such as various shapes of vesicle with wrinkled and thin walls resulted from ductile coalescence. Dense gray pumice formed in the initial stage includes small vesicles less than $15{\mu}m$ in size with subangular to angular shapes, free of ovoid vesicle. These characteristics are interpreted to have related to the hydrous environment derived from phreato-plinian eruption. Submicron particles observed as amorphous alumina silicate assemblages in vesicle surface are considered as particles sticked to the matrix surface through rapidly cooling process during ascent of alkali phonolitic magma. It indicates that these particles coexisted partly with crystallized alkali feldspar.