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When magmas erupt at the surface, they may have undergone many changes since their inception. While olivine drives some of these changes through crystallization and fractionation, it also records the magma evolution via mineral chemistry and by trapping mineral and melt inclusions. Olivine is an effective recorder of intensive parameters, such as temperature and melt composition, and provides an outstanding petrological tool for constraining dynamic processes, such as ascent, mixing, and cooling. Olivine sheds light on magmatic puzzles that involve both mafic and more evolved magmas, with protracted and complex magmatic histories that often obscure earlier and deeper processes. This contribution summarizes the current state of how olivine helps reconstruct source-to-surface magma assembly through its chemistry, inclusions, and textures.
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Olivine-Hosted Melt Inclusions: A Microscopic Perspective on a Complex Magmatic World
Inclusions of basaltic melt trapped inside of olivine phenocrysts during igneous crystallization provide a rich, crystal-scale record of magmatic processes ranging from mantle melting to ascent, eruption, and quenching of magma during volcanic eruptions. Melt inclusions are particularly valuable for retaining information on volatiles such as H 2 O and CO 2 that are normally lost by vesiculation and degassing as magma ascends and erupts. However, the record preserved in melt inclusions can be variably obscured by postentrapment processes, and thus melt inclusion research requires careful evaluation of the effects of such processes. Here we review processes by which melt inclusions are trapped and modified after trapping, describe new opportunities for studying the rates of magmatic and volcanic processes over a range of timescales using the kinetics of post-trapping processes, and describe recent developments in the use of volatile contents of melt inclusions to improve our understanding of how volcanoes work. ▪ Inclusions of silicate melt (magma) trapped inside of crystals formed by magma crystallization provide a rich, detailed record of what happens beneath volcanoes. ▪ These inclusions record information ranging from how magma forms deep inside Earth to its final hours as it ascends to the surface and erupts. ▪ The melt inclusion record, however, is complex and hazy because of many processes that modify the inclusions after they become trapped in crystals. ▪ Melt inclusions provide a primary archive of dissolved gases in magma, which are the key ingredients that make volcanoes erupt explosively.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1644013
- PAR ID:
- 10312769
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
- Volume:
- 49
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0084-6597
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-082420-060506
