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Experimental phase equilibria have been investigated on three medium-K silicic andesite (60–61 wt % SiO2) samples from Mount Pelee at 2–4 kbar, 850–1040°C, under both vapor-saturated CO2-free and vapor-saturated CO2-bearing conditions. Most experiments were crystallization experiments using dry glasses prepared from the natural rocks. Both normal- and rapid quench experiments were performed. Two ranges of oxygen fugacity (fO2) were investigated: NNO (Ni-NiO buffer) to NNO + 1 and NNO + 2 to NNO + 3. At 2 kbar for moderately oxidizing conditions, plagioclase (pl) and magnetite (mt) are the liquidus phases, followed by low-Ca pyroxene (opx); these three phases coexist over a large temperature (T)-H2O range (875–950°C and 5–7 wt % H2O in melt). Amphibole (am) is stable under near vapor-saturated CO2-free conditions at 876°C. At 900°C, ilmenite (ilm) is found only in experiments less than or equal to NNO. Upon increasing pressure (P) under vapor-saturated CO2-free conditions, pl + mt is replaced by am + mt on the liquidus above 3.5 kbar. For highly oxidizing conditions, mt is the sole liquidus phase at 2 kbar, followed by pl and opx, except in the most H2O-rich part of the diagram at 930°C, where opx is replaced by Ca-rich pyroxene (cpx) and am. Compositions of ferromagnesian phases systematically correlate with changingfO2 Experimental glasses range from andesitic through dacitic to rhyolitic, showing systematic compositional variations with pl + opx + mt fractionation (increase of SiO2 and K2O, decrease of Al2O3, CaO, FeOt, and MgO). FeO*/MgO moderately increases with increasing SiO2. For fO2 conditions typical of calk-alkaline magmatism (approximately NNO + 1), magnetite is either a liquidus or a near-liquidus phase in hydrous silicic andesite magmas, and this should stimulate reexamination for the mechanisms of generation of andesites by fractionation from basaltic parents.

International audience; By using recently determined experimental phase equilibria we show that the viscosity of granitic magmas emplaced at upper crustal levels is approximately constant at ∼ 104.5 Pa s, irrespective of their temperature and level of emplacement. Magmas crystallizing as granitic plutons are not water-poor and thus not more viscous than their extrusive equivalents. Instead, comparison between pre-eruption magma viscosities of extrusive silicic-intermediate and intrusive granitic magmas shows that the former are on average slightly more viscous. Given the typical strain rates in silicic magma chambers, magma rheological behavior is expected to be dominantly Newtonian, bubbles having a minor rheological influence at depth although exceptions can exist. Thus whether a silicic-intermediate magma is erupted or frozen at depth depends primarily on the rheological properties of surrounding terranes or on external tectonic factors, but not on the rheology of the magma itself. However, preemptive viscosities of extrusive magmas rarely exceed 106 Pa.s, which suggests that crystal-melt mushes with higher viscosities cannot leave the magma storage regions beneath volcanoes. The narrow range of viscosities displayed by silicic-intermediate magmas results from both the strong control that pressure exerts on volatile solubilities in silicate melts and thermal limitations required to produce acid magmas. Considerations of the relationships between magma crystallinities, bulk SiO2, and preemptive melt H2O contents show that the higher the melt H2O content is the higher the maximum crystallinity that a given magma will be while still being potentially erupted. An empirical correlation is proposed that enables us to estimate preemptive melt H2O contents of erupted magmas by knowing their crystallinity and bulk SiO2.

International audience; Explosive eruptions involve mainly silicic magmas in which sulfur solubility and diffusivity are low. This inhibits sulfur exsolution during magma uprise as compared to more mafic magmas such as basalts. Silicic magmas can nevertheless liberate large quantities of sulfur as shown by the monitoring of SO2 in recent explosive silicic eruptions in arc settings, which invariably have displayed an excess of sulfur relative to that calculated from melt degassing. If this excess sulfur is stored in a fluid phase, it implies a strong preference of sulfur for the fluid over the melt under oxidized conditions, with fluid/melt partition coefficients varying between 50 and 2612, depending on melt composition. Experimentally determined sulfur partition coefficients for a dacite bulk composition confirm this trend and show that in volcanic eruptions displaying excess gaseous sulfur, the magmas were probably fluid-saturated at depth. The experiments show that in more reduced silicic magmas, those coexisting only with pyrrhotite, the partition coefficient decreases dramatically to values around 1, because pyrrhotite locks up nearly all the sulfur of the magma. Reevaluation of the sulfur yields of some major historical eruptions in the light of these results shows that for oxidized magmas, the presence of 1-5 wt % fluid may indeed account for the differences observed between the petrologic estimate of the sulfur yield and that constrained from ice core data. Explosive eruptions of very large magnitude but involving reduced and cool silicic magmas, such as the Toba or the Bishop events, release only minor amounts of sulfur and could have consequently negligible long-term (years to centuries) atmospherical effects. This redox control on sulfur release diminishes as the melt composition becomes less silicic and as temperature increases, because both factors favor more efficient melt sulfur degassing owing to the increased diffusivity of sulfur in silicate melts under such conditions.

International audience; The Gangotri Miocene leucogranite is composed of several laccoliths (6-7 km long, 1.5-2 km thick), which can be divided into two sets of lenses: the southern lenses, intruded in the lower part of the High Himalaya sedimentary cover, and the northern lenses, intruded in an older porphyritic biotite-beating granite. In both cases, the magmatic fabric is commonly weak with no dominant stretching direction, although a rough E-W trend is present in the northern lenses. The magnetic fabric is characterized by the fact that drastic changes in the direction, in the magnitude of the magnetic parameters, or in the fabric type (planar or linear) may take place over very short distances. Measurements of preferred orientations in thin sections indicate that the strain regime was largely dominated by a coaxial component for both sets of lenses, in agreement with the large dispersion observed in both the field and magnetic lineations. The comparison of the granite and host rock structures shows that the leucogranite emplacement dates the onset of the extensional tectonism in the High Himalaya range and is not related to a southward directed thrust event associated with the Main Central Thrust. This is exemplified by the vertical attitude of the feeder dikes that intrude the metasedimentary rocks beneath the southern lenses. The presence of these dikes indicates in turn that magma ascent occurred by fracture propagation. The spatial disposition of the southern lenses could have resulted either from the disruption of a single laccolithic intrusion by crustal scale boudinage due to a northern gravity backslide of the top of the Tibetan Slab or from the intrusion of independent laccoliths. The use of the elastic bending theory of Pollard and Johnson (1973) shows that in both hypotheses, the current laccolith sizes are compatible with a laccolithic mode of magma emplacement. However, neither the density contrast between the magma and its enclosing rocks nor the lithological boundary between the Tibetan Slab and the overlying Tibetan metasedimentary series controlled the level of magma emplacement. Rather, flat-lying collapse structures, which intersected the upward propagating magma dikes, are the most likely causes of magma arrest. Such a mechanism was favored by the schist-rich lithology of the metasedimentary host rocks. In addition, field relationships indicate that the melt supply through the dike system was a continuous, rather than pulsed, process. Existing numerical treatments on the rates of magma transport through fractures show that in such a case, the laccoliths could have been built in less than 100 years. This short time of emplacement, the small size of the laccoliths, and their peripheral disposition relative to the Badrinath granite suggest that the Gangotri lenses may represent the initial stage of pluton accretion in the High Himalaya which ultimately gave rise to a much larger massif such as the Manaslu granite.

A model of the electrical resistivity of Mt. Vesuvius has been elaborated to investigate the present structure of the volcanic edifice. The model is based on electrical conductivity measurements in the laboratory, on geophysical information, in particular, magnetotelluric (MT) data, and on petrological and geochemical constraints. Both 1-D and 3-D simulations explored the effect of depth, volume and resistivity of either one or two reservoirs in the structure. For each configuration tested, modeled MT transfer functions were compared to field transfer functions from field magnetotelluric studies. The field electrical data are reproduced with a shallow and very conductive layer (~0.5km depth, 1.2km thick, 5ohm.m resistive) that most likely corresponds to a saline brine present beneath the volcano. Our results are also compatible with the presence of cooling magma batches at shallow depths ( ~100ohm.m. According to a petro-physical conductivity model, such a resistivity value is in agreement either with a low-temperature, crystal-rich magma chamber or with a small quantity of hotter magma interconnected in the resistive surrounding carbonates. However, the low quality of MT field data at long periods prevent from placing strong constraints on a potential deep magma reservoir. A comparison with seismic velocity values tends to support the second hypothesis. Our findings would be consistent with a deep structure (8-10km depth) made of a tephriphonolitic magma at 1000°C, containing 3.5wt%H2O, 30vol.% crystals, and interconnected in carbonates in proportions ~45% melt - 55% carbonates.

We combine petrological, analytical, and thermodynamical data to constrain the sulfur yield of the AD 1600 Huaynaputina eruption which has been associated with the largest Earth's temperature shift in the last 600 years. The calculated amount of S (26–55 Tg), partly overlaps, but ranges to almost twice the amount estimated from ice-core data (16–32 Tg), the higher values of our estimate probably reflect that not all S released by the eruption reached the stratosphere. Our study also shows that it is possible to estimate the atmospheric sulfur loading from the volcanic products themselves, which opens the possibility to explore volcano-climate links beyond the time period covered by ice-core archives