High-temperature experiments on silicate melt inclusions in olivine at 1 atm: inference on temperatures of homogenization and H 2O concentrations

Abstract

A series of heating stage experiments, at ambient atmosphere and high temperature, were conducted in order to detail the change in the homogenization temperature and the behavior of H 2O of melt inclusions in olivine phenocrysts (Fo 82–89). The samples were collected at different volcanic sites (Piton de la Fournaise [PdF], Réunion Island; Stromboli, Aeolian Islands; FAMOUS zone) expected to have a range of magmatic water contents. The melt inclusions vary in composition from basaltic to shoshonitic, with H 2O content from 0.14 to 2.9 wt.%. Temperatures of homogenization ( T h) of melt inclusions systematically increase with time during heating experiments, regardless of their major element composition and their H 2O. It is proposed that T h changes with time in response to the deformation of the host crystal and change in the volume of the cavity. The FTIR spectra successively acquired on the same inclusion repeatedly heated at constant temperature clearly demonstrated that the relative absorbance (Abs. n /Abs. 0) measured at 3535 cm −1 corresponding to hydroxyl group and molecular H 2O decreases with time. The H 2O-rich melt inclusions may have lost from 20% to 80% H 2O after the first homogenization and almost total dehydration of melt inclusions may occur within few hours or less, at 1 atm. Water loss driven out off olivine-hosted melt inclusions possibly exists to some extent in natural large dunitic bodies or in mantle xenoliths.