Amphibole growth from a primitive alkaline basalt at 0.8 GPa: Time-dependent compositional evolution, growth rate and competition with clinopyroxene

Abstract

Amphibole growth rates were experimentally determined at hydrous (3.3–4.2 wt% H2O), isobaric (0.8 GPa) conditions, variable temperature (1030 and 1080 °C) and dwell time (0.25, 3, 6, and 9 h), using as starting material a primitive alkaline basalt from Procida island (Campi Flegrei Volcanic District, south Italy). Amphibole growth rates decrease from 1.5·10−7 to 2.9·10−8 cm s−1 as the duration of the experiments increase from 0.25 to 9 h. Moreover, increasing both temperature and water content leads to similar growth rate increase at constant dwell time. The comparison between amphibole and clinopyroxene growth rates determined at the same experimental conditions reveals for amphibole a faster growth relatively to the coexisting clinopyroxene, regardless of the dwell time. Furthermore, the experimental time appears to be a critical parameter for the composition of synthetic amphiboles; specifically, edenite is the dominant composition in short experiments (≤3 h), particularly, at low temperature (1030 °C), whereas the magnesiohastingsitic amphibole becomes progressively more important shifting towards longer duration and higher temperature run conditions. The magnesiohastingsite, on the basis of the amphibole-liquid Fe-Mg exchange coefficient values, results to be the compositional term representative of amphibole-melt equilibrium at the investigated P-T-H2O conditions. Finally, experimental growth rates from this study have been used to investigate the crystallization time of natural amphiboles and clinopyroxenes from the Oligo-Miocene cumulates of north-western Sardinia (i.e. Capo Marargiu Volcanic District, Italy), yielding crystallization times of 1.46–3.12 yr.