T37 The How, When, Where, and Why of Open-System Magma Processes

Sunday, 10 October 2021
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Portland Ballroom 252 (Hybrid Room)

BIG CHANGES AT KĪLAUEA VOLCANO: THE IMPACT OF 2018 SUMMIT COLLAPSE ON MAGMATIC PROCESSES RECORDED BY THE 2020 ERUPTION

Paper number: T37-13
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 4:30 PM – 4:50 PM

Authors

  • Kendra Lynn Presenting Author
    Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Hilo, HI

Abstract

The unprecedented 2018 summit collapse at Kīlauea and subsequent 2020 Halema‘uma‘u eruption provide an unparalleled opportunity to understand how collapse events impact the volcano’s shallow reservoir system and dominant magmatic processes. Glass and olivine were analyzed from tephra ejected by several explosions on 20-21 December within a few hours of the eruption onset. The olivine population is bimodal with zoned and non-zoned phenocrysts. Normally zoned olivine with dominantly Fo88 cores (forsterite; [Mg/(Mg+Fe)x100]) have 30-50 μm wide Fo82 overgrowth rims that have skeletal textures. Two skeletal xenocrysts (Fo74 and Fo81) are also reversely zoned up to Fo82. The Fo82 rims and a population of non-zoned Fo82 crystals are in Fe-Mg equilibrium with the glass (average MgO of 6.9±0.4 wt% (1σ), Mg# [Mg/(Mg+Fe2+)] of 0.57). These textures and compositions reflect undercooling after intrusion of magma to shallow levels in the plumbing system. In the years prior to the 2018 collapse, non-zoned Fo81 olivine and low MgO glasses (e.g., 6.8 wt%) reflected continuous mixing and compositional buffering of magma recharge into several km3 of shallowly stored magma. The 2020 olivine lack evidence of mixing with stored magma, indicating that the intrusion occurred in a disrupted system, and/or it bypassed any stored magma remaining from the Halema‘uma‘u reservoir, which facilitated summit collapse and was at least partially drained by the 2018 eruption. Non-zoned olivine for several years prior to 2018 precludes diffusion studies, but the normally zoned 2020 olivine constrain the timescales of magma movement through the current system. Diffusion model results cluster around 60 days before eruption, which aligns well with 22-24 October seismic swarms under the Ka‘ōiki fault zone W of Kīlauea’s summit. These timescales and the olivine data show that the summit collapse in 2018 has led to substantial changes in both Kīlauea’s shallow plumbing system and its magmatic processes.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 53, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2021AM-366992

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