Anhydrite in the 1989–1990 lavas and xenoliths from Redoubt Volcano, Alaska

Abstract

The eruption of Redoubt Volcano in Alaska produced a moderate sulfur emission (estimated at 1 × 10 tons SO 2), but relatively small volume of lava (0.11 km ) with pre-eruption estimates of 840–950 °C and fO 21.5 to 2.0 log units above NNO (Swanson, S.E., Nye, C.J., Miller, T.P., Avery, V.F., 1994. Magma mixing in the 1989–1990 eruption of Redoubt Volcano: Part II. Evidence from mineral and glass chemistry. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 62, 453–468). Petrologic estimates of sulfur production (Sigurdsson, H., Devine, J.D.,Davis, A.N., 1985. The petrologic estimation of volcanic degassing. Jokull 35, 1–8) from this eruption (Gerlach, T., Westrich, H.R., Casadevall, T.J., Finnegan, D.L., 1994. Vapor Saturation and accumulation in magmas of the 1989–1990 eruption of Redoubt Volcano, Alaska. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 62, 317–337) are considerably less than the measured sulfur emission, leading workers to propose the existence of a pre-eruption vapor phase to explain the “excess” sulfur. Initial examination of the 1989–1990 Redoubt eruptive products reported anhydrite (Nye, C.J., Swanson, S.E., Avery, V.F., Miller, T.P., 1994. Geochemistry of the 1989–1990 eruption of Redoubt Volcano: Part I, whole-rock, major- and trace-element chemistry. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 62, 429–452.) in interstitial glass from some cognate gabbroic xenoliths, but anhydrite was not noted in any of the andesites. A Boeing 747 encountered the ash plume from the initial eruptive phase on December 15, 1989 and provided ash samples that reportedly contained gypsum (Bayhurst, G.K., Wohletz, K.H., Mason, A.S., 1994. A method for characterizing volcanic ash from the December 15, 1989, eruption of Redoubt Volcano, Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 2047, 13–17). However, the identification was based on EDS analyses on a SEM and the mineral could have been anhydrite. Reexamination of the 1989–1990 Redoubt lavas and xenoliths revealed the presence of rare, fine-grained (10s of microns) anhydrite crystals in the lavas and larger (10s to 100s of microns) crystals in the xenoliths. The anhydrite forms elongate crystals with sharp contacts against the groundmass glass. Grains show rounded terminations suggesting breakdown of the anhydrite, perhaps during eruption. The anhydrite is a sparse phase in the lavas, but occurs in lavas and cognate xenoliths erupted throughout the eruption. The presence and breakdown of anhydrite may explain the “excess” sulfur associated with the Redoubt eruption. A careful search of other freshly erupted andesitic lavas solidified from hydrous, oxidizing magmas should reveal other examples of anhydrite and cause a rethinking of the source of sulfur in volcanic emissions.