Long-lived dacitic magmatic systems and recharge dynamics in the Jemez Mountains volcanic field, western USA

Abstract

We examine the connected history of dacite-dominant volcanic rocks of the Tschicoma Formation, erupted between 5.5 and 2 Ma from the Jemez Mountains volcanic field, western USA. Zircon samples from two separate eruptions have continuous SHRIMP U–Pb age spectra spanning 0.84–1.08 Myr duration (3.12–3.96 Ma and 3.50–4.58 Ma, respectively), following an episode of zircon crystallization 0.28–0.50 Myr earlier (at 4.46 Ma and 4.86 Ma, respectively). Zircon chemical variations, as well as ubiquitous resorption textures that commonly show large core-rim age differences (up to 720–740 kyr), suggest that they grew in separate melt lenses. Zircons were likely stored at near-solidus or even sub-solidus conditions after crystallization, but may have been reactivated in response to at least four major magma recharge events every 300–400 kyr and smaller events in between. A cycle of zircon dissolution (from heating), recrystallization (during cooling), and storage repeated in different locations in the Tschicoma mush system throughout its lifespan; each recharge-induced heating stage may last for several hundred to more than a thousand years based on calculations of zircon dissolution. We envisage the melt lenses to be distributed in a crystal mush zone, coalescing into a single magma batch as magma recharge occurs shortly before eruption. Once active, increasing magma supply rates may trigger large-scale partial melting of the pre-existing mush and caldera-forming eruptions.