Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Dendritic crystallization in hydrous basaltic magmas controls magma mobility within the Earth’s crust

Arzilli, Fabio; Polacci, Margherita; La Spina, Giuseppe; Le Gall, Nolwenn; Llewellin, Edward W.; Brooker, Richard A.; Torres-Orozco, Rafael; Di Genova, Danilo; Neave, David A.; Hartley, Margaret E.; Mader, Heidy M.; Giordano, Daniele; Atwood, Robert; Lee, Peter D.; Heidelbach, Florian; Burton, Mike R.

Dendritic crystallization in hydrous basaltic magmas controls magma mobility within the Earth’s crust Thumbnail


Authors

Fabio Arzilli

Margherita Polacci

Giuseppe La Spina

Nolwenn Le Gall

Richard A. Brooker

Rafael Torres-Orozco

Danilo Di Genova

David A. Neave

Margaret E. Hartley

Heidy M. Mader

Daniele Giordano

Robert Atwood

Peter D. Lee

Florian Heidelbach

Mike R. Burton



Abstract

The majority of basaltic magmas stall in the Earth’s crust as a result of the rheological evolution caused by crystallization during transport. However, the relationships between crystallinity, rheology and eruptibility remain uncertain because it is difficult to observe dynamic magma crystallization in real time. Here, we present in-situ 4D data for crystal growth kinetics and the textural evolution of pyroxene during crystallization of trachybasaltic magmas in high-temperature experiments under water-saturated conditions at crustal pressures. We observe dendritic growth of pyroxene on initially euhedral cores, and a surprisingly rapid increase in crystal fraction and aspect ratio at undercooling ≥30 °C. Rapid dendritic crystallization favours a rheological transition from Newtonian to non-Newtonian behaviour within minutes. We use a numerical model to quantify the impact of rapid dendritic crystallization on basaltic dike propagation, and demonstrate its dramatic effect on magma mobility and eruptibility. Our results provide insights into the processes that control whether intrusions lead to eruption or not.

Citation

Arzilli, F., Polacci, M., La Spina, G., Le Gall, N., Llewellin, E. W., Brooker, R. A., …Burton, M. R. (2022). Dendritic crystallization in hydrous basaltic magmas controls magma mobility within the Earth’s crust. Nature Communications, 13(1), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30890-8

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 13, 2022
Online Publication Date Jun 10, 2022
Publication Date 2022
Deposit Date Jul 19, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Nature Communications
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 1
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30890-8

Files

Published Journal Article (3.2 Mb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.





You might also like



Downloadable Citations