Basalt Magma, Whisky and Tequila: finely-crafted mixes of small liquid batches that defy the parent liquid concept but whose complexities teach us much

Abstract:

Basalt is the most ubiquitous magma type we know of in the solar system. It comes in various varieties manifested as compositional sub groups, erupts from a wide variety of volcanic systems and tectonic settings, and its eruptions span many order of magnitude in duration and volume. Igneous petrology, thermodynamics, geochemistry, and geodynamical modelling have been used to develop a sophisticated understanding of source lithologies, compositions and formation conditions (e.g., pressure and temperature) for parent melts and their subsequent transport, storage and evolution. These demonstrate some striking systematics as a function of volcano tectonic setting (on Earth). Yet much like Whisky, what makes it into the bottle, or the eruption, is a mixture of different liquids with unique characteristics, sometimes stirred so well that successive batches are indistinguishable, and sometimes stirred more incompletely, preserving small batch characters that are unique. Recently, geochemical and petrological studies in high spatial density within the products of individual eruptions have shown chemical and mineralogical evidence for incompletely mixed heterogeneous magmas in a majority of systems examined, begging the question of when, if ever, is it realistic to speak of a single parent magma composition, and even in cases where it apparently is, if these are instead just more thoroughly stirred multi-parent magmas. For instance, do monogenetic fields really erupt basalts of more varied parent melt compositions than large hot spot and flood basalt eruptions, or are they just more poorly stirred? This presentation will focus on work by ourselves and others constraining spatial and temporal single-eruption basaltic magma histories at different settings, using them to unravel the time and space scales of magma formation and mixing, how these translate to the assembly of an erupted basalt magma, and the implications for deducing things about and from presumed parents.