The Etnean Lavas, 1977–1983: Petrology and mineralogy

Abstract

The products emitted by Mount Etna in the 1977–1983 period are porphyric, sodic trachybasalts («etnaites») that, though substantially higher in K2O, resemble most of the historic lavas. The 1983 flows, for instance, are composed of 50–55% glassy groundmass and abundant phenocrysts or microphenocrysts: plagioclase (25–30%), clinopyroxene (12–15%), olivine (3–5%), titanomagnetite (2%). Scarce olivine Fo 83-78 and diopsidic pyroxene are present in the cores of some phenocrysts. Outer zones and/or more numerous crystals are olivine Fo 75-68, salite En 43-37 Fs 10-15, plagioclase An 83-55 an Al-Mg rich magnetite Usp 43-33. The chemical composition of glass inclusions interpreted as trapped liquids suggests that olivine and magnetite crystallize first and are followed by pyroxene and plagioclase. The early appearance of olivine has been determined by optical thermometry to about 1170°C, soon followed by plagioclase and pyroxene (1160–1140°C). Pre-eruptive crystallization further progresses until 1073°C which is the field-measured temperature at the lava vent. Then, the appearance and composition of microlites (and outer rims of phenocrysts) depend upon the cooling rate of the samples (water quenching or natural cooling). Electron microprobe analyses of chlorine and sulphur have been performed on crystal trapped and groundmass glasses. Sulphur ranges from an initial content of 1500 ppm to 400 ppm in residual glass, leading to an average sulphur emission of 1500 tons/day (3000 t/d SO2), as estimated from the volume of erupted lava. The most striking chemical feature of the 1977–1983 lavas lies in the abnormal potassium behaviour, especially in the earliest flows of the 1978–1979 fissure eruptions. Although these lavas are amongst the most femic of the period, they are relatively high in K2 O, leading to an aberrant K/Na ratio (i.e. increasing with increasing basicity). Furthermore, a less pronounced but steady increase of K2 O/Na2 O is evidenced in all the lavas of the past 12 years. This ratio ranges from 0.42 in the 1971 lavas to 0.51 in the 1983 ones, for about the same differentiation index. Such an abnormal potassium behaviour first appeared during the 1974 eruption on the west slope of the volcano. It is unknown, however, in any other historic lava, nor in any lava of entire Etna so far analyzed.