Linking enclave formation to magma rheology

Abstract

Magmatic enclaves record the history of deformation and disaggregation (i.e., fragmentation) of relatively hot, compositionally more mafic magmas injected into actively convecting silicic magma chambers through dikes. Enclave size distributions may provide crucial clues for understanding the nature of this mechanical mixing process. Accordingly, we conduct a comprehensive field study to measure enclave size distributions in six Cascade lava flows. Using results from recent fluid dynamics experiments along with thermodynamic and modeling constraints on key physical properties of the injected and host magmas (i.e., temperature, density and effective viscosity), we use the size distributions of enclaves to characterize the magmatic flow regime governing enclave formation. Scaling arguments suggest that the viscous stresses related to magma chamber flow acting against the yield strength of a crystallizing injected magma control the breakup of 1 m‐wide mafic dikes into millimeter‐ to centimeter‐scale enclaves. Our data analysis identifies a characteristic length scale of breakup that constrains the yield strength of the injected magmas in a more restrictive way than existing empirical models for yield strength based on crystal content. In all six lava flows, we show that the progressive fragmentation of the injected magma is self‐similar and characterized by a fractal dimensionDf ∼ 2, which is comparable to previous studies on enclaves. We also find a small but statistically significant dependence of Df on the effective viscosity ratio between host and enclave magmas, such that large variations in effective viscosity enhance breakup. This work demonstrates that field observations of enclave size distributions can reliably constrain the rheological and flow conditions in which enclaves form.