Evidences for disruption of a crystallizing front in a magma chamber during caldera collapse: an example from the Breccia Museo unit (Campanian Ignimbrite eruption, Italy)

Abstract

This work is focused on juvenile components and some cognate xenoliths of the Breccia Museo (BM) unit. The BM is a coarse-grained proximal unit of the caldera-forming phase of the Ignimbrite Campana (IC) eruption, southern Italy. The BM products show some peculiar characteristics that distinguish them from the other IC deposits. In particular, different types of pumice fragments constitute the juvenile fraction and their crystal contents are remarkably higher than the other IC units. Slightly porphyritic and highly porphyritic trachytic to phonolitic pumices were distinguished in each sample and investigated separately for mineralogy, matrix glass composition, melt and fluid inclusion studies. Most feldspar crystals may have formed at the margins of the magma chamber and the crystal content of both types of pumice fragments can be ascribed to variable entrainment of these crystals (from the solidification front) by the melt. Variably porphyritic (<5 to 30 vol% phenocrysts) pumice and completely crystallized nodules may represent samples of progressively crystallized magma at the chamber walls. Crystallization temperatures of magmas and xenoliths were estimated using two independent methods: a two-feldspar geothermometer and the homogenization temperatures of melt and fluid inclusions in clinopyroxene and K-feldspar. The decrease in the estimated crystallization temperatures from the melt (980–850°C) to the nodules (840–820°C) is consistent with a model of decreasing temperature at a magma chamber solidification front. The study of xenoliths revealed that exsolution of a hypersaline aqueous fluid phase occurred at the peripheral parts of the magma chamber.