Abstract
Abstract Zircon dating is commonly used to quantify timescales of magmatic processes, but our appreciation of the consequences of internal magma body dynamics lags behind ever-increasing analytical capabilities. In particular, it has been shown that crystal accumulation and melting of cumulates by recharge-delivered heat may affect melt chemistry within magma bodies. We considered the effect of such processes on zircon solubility in highly evolved silicate melts of diverse chemical affinities. Our modeling shows that in most cases cumulate melting perpetuates the zircon saturation behavior of the first melts emplaced at shallow storage levels. Once cumulate melting is established, the ease of saturating in zircon is controlled by cumulate mineralogy, with a particular effect of the amount of cumulate zircon and its availability for resorption. The fidelity of zircon as a recorder of magma system history thus depends on both the system’s chemical affinity and mineralogy, and the history itself.
Highlights
Knowledge of zircon stability is key to the modern understanding of magmatic systems
While it is possible to predict how certain chemical parameters would behave as a result of this likely ubiquitous process, such predictions are rarely incorporated into interpretations of zircon data. We address this issue by exploring the influence of such crystal–melt dynamics on the composition of evolved silicate melts and their zircon saturation behavior
We will show that the ability of these melts to reach and maintain zircon saturation is defined largely by their placement in M-Zr space during crustal storage, and the mineralogy of their cumulates
Summary
Knowledge of zircon stability is key to the modern understanding of magmatic systems. Most common magmatic evolutionary trends generate melts that approach the appropriate zircon saturation curves at M between ∼1.3 and 2.5, and their most differentiated, zirconundersaturated derivatives generally trend away from the composition of their dominant mineral phase, alkali feldspar (M ∼1.7, Zr = 0).
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