VOLCANOLOGY & MAGMATISM

Global volcanic risk is increasing.

In the past ~15 years a new branch of volcano petrology has formed to specifically focus upon gaining information from disequilibrium textures at the margins of crystals. This branch has now reached the stage where it is possible to reconstruct a detailed physical pathway that magma took to the surface. The same record of disequilibrium processes can be used to measure the time elapsed from a physical process (e.g. magma injection into the crust) to eruption.

Together, these integrated data map the journey of magma in space and time in the months-hours before an eruption. In theory, these records can be forward-modelled to simulate what real-time signals would look like with a specific monitoring network: a proxy monitoring record of the pre-eruptive period using the volcanoes’ own history. Supporting this new science is petrological, geochemical and isotopic studies that provide context and insight to dynamic magmatic processes.

New insights (see Pankhurst et al. 2018 EPSL) raise new questions about physical behaviour of crystals inside magma, and one useful place to search for answers is the Moon...