Water saturated phase relations of some andesites with application to the estimation of the initial temperature and water pressure at the time of eruption

Abstract

Near-liquidus phase relations in one-atmosphere dry and water-saturated high pressure conditions were experimentally determined on products of three historic andesitic eruptions. Run conditions ranged from 900 to 1100°C, at pressures up to 1500 bars with fO 2 controlled close to the nickel-nickel oxide (NNO) buffer. In order to represent the compositions of the true liquid parts of the erupting magmas, groundmass portions were mechanically separated from the porphyritic andesites. Such groundmass materials should lie exactly on the liquidus field boundary between the phases precipitating from the magma just prior to eruption under the prevailing P-T condition. All the samples showed a crossing of the plagioclase and orthopyroxene liquidi in the pressure-temperature range from 1 to 800 bar and 950–1090°C. The crossing condition approximates the magmatic condition immediately prior to eruption. In the case of the 1970 eruption of Akita-komagatake, the crossing point is at 150 bar and 1090°C, matching closely the observed explosive gas pressure and the temperature. In both cases of the 1783 eruption of Asama and the 1914–1915 eruption of Sakurajima volcanoes, the crossing point shift from higher water pressure and lower temperature for the earlier erupting magmas to lower pressure and higher temperature for the later magmas. This regularity may be explained by a vertical gradient of the temperature and water content within the magma column prior to eruption.