Melting and crystallisation relations of Kilauean basalts of HAWAII. The lavas of the 1959–60 Kilauea eruption

Abstract

Experimental melting and crystallisation data are provided on a suite of analysed tholeütic lavas of the 1959–60 Kilauea eruption. The laboratory melting data on the products of erupting lava fountains confirm that the field temperatures of the fountains measured by optical pyrometry are consistently lower than the experimental temperatures. These discordances are analysed. Closer accord is revealed when the experimental liquidus temperatures, previously shown to be directly related to the iron enrichment of the lavas, are compared with temperatures more recently obtained from extrapelated thermocouple data in cooling Kilauea lava lakes. The crystallisation history of the 1959–60. Kilauea lavas recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey is discussed in terms of the sequence revealed in the laboratory melting studies.