Geological Summary

Rodderberg, in the Rodderberg Volcanic Complex (RVC), is a late Pleistocene cinder cone on the west side of the Rhine River. The complex itself consists of a circular depression with a diameter of about 600 m, a feature that is interpreted to be the remnant of a maar crater (Paulick et al., 2009). This field most likely represents a distal feature of the East Eifel Volcanic Field. The eruption of Rodderberg occurred in two phases. The first was phreatomagmatic, producing xenolith-rich, poorly sorted deposits. The second phase was dominated by Strombolian activity, resulting in xenolith-poor, thick and well-sorted coarse scoria deposits (Paulick et al., 2009). Geochemistry reveals the rocks erupted from the RVC to be leucitic nephelinite. The total erupted volume of material from the RVC eruption is estimated to be about 1.0x10^-2 km³ of magma and 2-3x10^-2 km³ of tephra - a rough order of magnitude estimate. The RVC deposits were previously dated at 26,000-27,000 years before present (IAVCEI 1973), but more recent thermoluminescence data placed the eruption at around 300 ka, during a glacial period in central Europe (Paulick et al., 2009).

References

The following references have all been used during the compilation of data for this volcano, it is not a comprehensive bibliography.

IAVCEI, 1973-80. Post-Miocene Volcanoes of the World. IAVCEI Data Sheets, Rome, International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior.