A diapir is a type of intrusion

 in which a more mobile and ductily-deformable material is forced into brittle overlying rocks. Depending on the tectonic environment, diapirs can range from idealized mushroom-shaped Rayleigh-Taylor instability
Rayleigh-Taylor instability
The Rayleigh–Taylor instability, or RT instability , is an instability of an interface between two fluids of different densities, which occurs when the lighter fluid is pushing the heavier fluid....

Gulf of Mexico

 to narrow dike
Dike (geology)

s of material that move along tectonically-induced fractures in surrounding rock. The term was introduced by the Romanian


 Ludovic Mrazek, who was the first to understand the principle of salt intrusion and plasticity
Plasticity (physics)
In physics and materials science, plasticity describes the deformation of a material undergoing non-reversible changes of shape in response to applied forces. For example, a solid piece of metal being bent or pounded into a new shape displays plasticity as permanent changes occur within the...

Salt dome
A salt dome is a type of structural dome formed when a thick bed of evaporite minerals found at depth intrudes vertically into surrounding rock strata, forming a diapir....

s and mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...


In addition to Earth-based observations, diapirism is thought to occur on Jupiter's moon Europa
Europa (moon)
Europa Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and probably has an iron core. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is composed of ice and is one of the smoothest in the Solar System. This surface is striated by cracks and...

, Saturn's moon Enceladus
Enceladus (moon)

, and Uranus's moon Miranda
Miranda (moon)
-External links:* at * at The Nine8 Planets* at Views of the Solar System* * from the...




Well drilling

 through them. There is an analogy to a Galilean thermometer.

Rock types such as evaporitic
Evaporite is a name for a water-soluble mineral sediment that result from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution. There are two types of evaporate deposits, marine which can also be described as ocean deposits, and non-marine which are found in standing bodies of...


 assembles. Diapirism in the mantle
Mantle (geology)

 is thought to be associated with the development of large igneous province
Large igneous province
A Large Igneous Province is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks—intrusive, extrusive, or both—in the earth's crust...

s and some mantle plume
Mantle plume
A mantle plume is a hypothetical thermal diapir of abnormally hot rock that nucleates at the core-mantle boundary and rises through the Earth's mantle. Such plumes were invoked in 1971 to explain volcanic regions that were not thought to be explicable by the then-new theory of plate tectonics. Some...


Explosive, hot volatile
In planetary science, volatiles are that group of chemical elements and chemical compounds with low boiling points that are associated with a planet's or moon's crust and/or atmosphere. Examples include nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen, and methane, all compounds of C, H, O...

 rich magma or volcanic eruptions are referred to generally as diatreme
A diatreme is a breccia-filled volcanic pipe that was formed by a gaseous explosion. Diatremes often breach the surface and produce a tuff cone, a filled relatively shallow crater known as a maar, or other volcanic pipes.- Word origin :...


Economic importance of diapirs

In structural geology, an anticline is a fold that is convex up and has its oldest beds at its core. The term is not to be confused with antiform, which is a purely descriptive term for any fold that is convex up. Therefore if age relationships In structural geology, an anticline is a fold that is...

s, salt dome
Salt dome

s and other structures capable of trapping petroleum

 and natural gas
Natural gas

. Igneous intrusions themselves are typically too hot to allow the preservation of preexisting hydrocarbon


See also

  • Geyser
    A geyser is a spring characterized by intermittent discharge of water ejected turbulently and accompanied by a vapour phase . The word geyser comes from Geysir, the name of an erupting spring at Haukadalur, Iceland; that name, in turn, comes from the Icelandic verb geysa, "to gush", the verb...

  • Granite

  • Granite dome
    Granite dome
    A granite dome is a dome of granite, formed by exfoliation.-Formation:Granite forms plutons of igneous rock several kilometers below the surface as magma slowly cools and crystallizes. The granite is under great overhead pressure....

  • Hydrothermal vent
    Hydrothermal vent

  • Mud volcano
    Mud volcano

  • Salt tectonics
    Salt tectonics
    500px|thumb|rightSalt tectonics is concerned with the geometries and processes associated with the presence of significant thicknesses of evaporites containing rock salt within a stratigraphic sequence of rocks...

  • salt dome
    Salt dome
