Ten Thousand Years of Magma Storage Preceding the Last Caldera-Forming Eruption of the Bandelier Magmatic System, New Mexico, USA

Abstract

Abstract In this study, we present new evidence for changes in magma storage conditions that preceded the 1232 ka caldera-forming eruption of the Bandelier magmatic system in the Jemez Mountains Volcanic Field. Using high precision 40Ar/39Ar sanidine dating we determine that at least eight rhyolites erupted within 8.6 ± 3.4 kyr of the ~400 km3 eruption that formed Valles caldera. Some of those rhyolites contain fayalite with or without biotite, others contain only biotite. An eruption of fayalite-bearing rhyolite at 1240.5 ± 2.1 ka ended an eruption hiatus of at least 100 kyr. Following that first post-hiatus episode of volcanism, at least four more eruptions of fayalite-bearing rhyolite and three eruptions of biotite-bearing rhyolite occurred prior to the caldera-forming eruption. We use phase equilibrium experiments and geothermobarometry to infer the storage conditions and processes that led to these differing crystal cargos and ultimately generated ~400 km3 of predominantly fayalite rhyolite ignimbrite (Tshirege Member of the Bandelier Tuff). We find that biotite-bearing rhyolites were stored at 695–750°C, 75–160 MPa, and at an oxygen fugacity more oxidizing than the quartz-fayalite-magnetite (QFM) buffer reaction. Fayalite-bearing rhyolites were similarly stored at 695–745°C and 70–190 MPa, but at more reducing conditions (${f}_{O_2}$≤ QFM). We suggest that the reduced, fayalite-bearing rhyolite was most likely produced via interaction of crystal-poor rhyolitic magma with a reducing, potentially Cl-bearing, and H2O-rich supercritical fluid phase. This fluid flux event was a key component of the substantial magmatic rejuvenation that enabled the mobilization of ~400 km3 of mostly fayalite-bearing rhyolite prior to not only the Tshirege event, but the older Otowi event as well.