Relationships between chamber margin accumulates and pore liquids: evidence from arrested in situ processes in ejecta, Latera caldera, Italy

Abstract

Biotite- and clinopyroxene-rich mafic nodules occur together with syenite ejecta in ca. 235 to 155 Ka tuffs surrounding the Latera caldera. Clinopyroxenites and leucite monzosyenites crystallized along the lower margins of a crustal magma system, and record complex crystallization histories of potassic magmas that were parental to a range of lava and tuff compositions. The mafic nodules have the mineral assemblage clinopyroxene >biotite>anorthite>orthoclase>leucite>hauyne >titanite>apatite±amphibole±olivine±phlogopite, and comprise mesocumulate and orthocumulate layers that commonly alternate on the scale of several centimeters. Despite the apparently “ultramafic” nature of the early cumulate assemblage, the common occurrence of intercumulate orthoclase, leucite, hauyne, salitic clinopyroxene and vesicular glass indicates that interstitial liquids underwent late-stage differentiation at relatively shallow depths but under highly variable conditions of volatile saturation. Many of the mafic nodules exhibit pronounced variations in the type and abundance of mineral reaction textures. These range from unreacted assemblages to nodules in which cumulate megacrysts are surrounded by well-developed symplectite halos. The textural variability indicates strongly localized disequilibrium between cumulate frameworks and vapor-saturated pore fluids, and is attributed to convective fractionation of liquids through permeable crystal mush. Lithologic discontinuities exhibited by the xenolith suite and host magmas are best explained by variable communication between a compositionally stratified magma reservoir and its partly crystallized lower chamber margins. Periodic replenishment of this system by less evolved magmas subsequently promoted mixing and hybridization that are characteristic features of many Latera lavas and tephra.