Time scales of magma transport and mixing at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai’i
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Modeling of volcanic processes is limited by a lack of knowledge of the time scales of storage, mixing, and final ascent of magmas into the shallowest portions of volcanic plumbing systems immediately prior to eruption. It is impossible to measure these time scales directly; however, micro-analytical techniques provide indirect estimates based on the extent of diffusion of species through melts and crystals. We use diffusion in olivine phenocrysts from the A.D. 1959 Kīlauea Iki (Hawai’i, USA) eruption to constrain the timing of mixing events in the crustal plumbing system on time scales of months to years before eruption. The time scales derived from zonation of Fe-Mg in olivines, combined with contemporaneous geophysical data, suggest that mixing occurred on three time scales: (1) as much as 2 yr prior to eruption in the deep storage system; (2) in a shallow reservoir, between incoming hot melts and resident melt for several weeks to months prior to eruption; and (3) in the conduit and summit reservoir, between the resident magma and cooled surface lava, draining back into the vent on time scales of hours to several days during pauses between episodes. Synchronous inflation of the shallow reservoir with deep earthquake swarms and mixing suggests an intermittently open transcrustal magmatic system
Date Issued
2016-06-01
Date Acceptance
2016-04-20
Citation
Geology, 2016, 44 (6), pp.463-466
ISSN
0091-7613
Publisher
Geological Society of America
Start Page
463
End Page
466
Journal / Book Title
Geology
Volume
44
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© The Authors
Gold Open Access: This paper is published under the terms of the CC-BY license.
Gold Open Access: This paper is published under the terms of the CC-BY license.
License URL
Subjects
Geochemistry & Geophysics
04 Earth Sciences
Publication Status
Published