Calderas are collapse structures related to the emptying of magmatic reservoirs, often associated with large eruptions from long-lived magmatic systems. Understanding how magma is transferred from a magma reservoir to the surface before eruptions is a major challenge. Here we exploit the historical, archaeological and geological record of Campi Flegrei caldera to estimate the surface deformation preceding the Monte Nuovo eruption and investigate the shallow magma transfer. Our data suggest a progressive magma accumulation from ~1251 to 1536 in a 4.6 ± 0.9 km deep source below the caldera centre, and its transfer, between 1536 and 1538, to a 3.8 ± 0.6 km deep magmatic source ~4 km NW of the caldera centre, below Monte Nuovo; this peripheral source fed the eruption through a shallower source, 0.4 ± 0.3 km deep. This is the first reconstruction of pre-eruptive magma transfer at Campi Flegrei and corroborates the existence of a stationary oblate source, below the caldera centre, that has been feeding lateral eruptions for the last ~5 ka. Our results suggest: 1) repeated emplacement of magma through intrusions below the caldera centre; 2) occasional lateral transfer of magma feeding non-central eruptions within the caldera. Comparison with historical unrest at calderas worldwide suggests that this behavior is common.

Magma transfer at Campi Flegrei caldera (Italy) before the 1538 AD eruption

[1] Current estimates of gross primary productivity (GPP) of the terrestrial biosphere vary widely, from 100 to 175 Gt C year−1. Ecosystem GPP cannot be measured directly, and is commonly estimated using models. Among the many parameters in those models, three leaf parameters have strong influences on the modelled GPP: leaf mass per area, leaf lifespan and leaf nitrogen concentration. The first two parameters affect the modelled canopy leaf area and the last two determine the maximal leaf photosynthetic rate. Ecological studies have firmly established that these three parameters are significantly correlated at regional to global scales, but this knowledge is yet to be used in predicting global GPP. We hypothesize that incorporating multi-trait covariance can reduce uncertainties of model predictions in a way likely to provide improved realism. Using the Australian community land surface model (CABLE), we find that correlations among these three parameters reduce the variance among GPP estimates by CABLE by over 20% for shrub, C4 grassland and tundra, and by between 5% and 20% for most other PFTs, as compared with the simulated GPP without considering the correlations. Globally the correlations do not alter the mean but reduce the variance of modeled GPP by CABLE by 28% and result in fewer extremely high or extremely low (and unlikely) global GPP predictions. Therefore correlations among the three leaf parameters, and possibly other parameters, can be used as a significant constraint on the estimates of model parameters or predictions by those models.

Correlations among leaf traits provide a significant constraint on the estimate of global gross primary production

The Bishop Tuff, one of the most extensively studied high-silica rhyolite bodies in the world, is usually considered as the archetypical example of a deposit formed from a magma body characterized by thermal and compositional vertical stratification—what we call the Standard Model for the Bishop magma body. We present here new geothermometry and geobarometry results derived using a large database of previously published quartz-hosted glass inclusion compositions. Assuming equilibrium between melt and an assemblage composed of quartz, ±plagioclase, ±sanidine, +zircon, ±fluid, we use Zr contents in glass inclusions to derive quartz crystallization temperatures, and we use (1) silica contents in glass, (2) projection of glass compositions onto the haplogranitic (quartz-albite-orthoclase) ternary, and (3) phase equilibria calculations using rhyolite-MELTS, to constrain crystallization pressures. We find crystallization temperatures of ~740–750 °C for all inclusions from both early- and late-erupted pumice. Crystallization pressures for both early- and late-erupted inclusions are also very similar to each other, with averages of ~175–200 MPa. We find no evidence of late-erupted inclusions having been entrapped at higher temperatures or pressures than early-erupted inclusions, as would be expected by the Standard Model. We argue that the thermal gradient inferred from Fe–Ti oxides—the backbone of the Standard Model—does not reflect equilibrium pre-eruptive conditions; we also note that H2O–CO2 systematics of glass inclusions yields overlapping pressure ranges for early- and late-erupted inclusions, similar to the results presented here; and we show that glass inclusion and phenocryst compositions show bimodal distributions, suggestive of compositional separation between early- and late-erupted populations. These findings are inconsistent with the Standard Model. The similarity in crystallization conditions and the compositional separation between early- and late-erupted magmas suggest that two laterally juxtaposed independent magma reservoirs existed in the same region at the same time and co-erupted to form the Long Valley Caldera and the Bishop Tuff. This hypothesis would explain the lack of mixing between early- and late-erupted crystal populations in pumice clasts; it could also explain the inferred eruption pattern—which resulted in early-erupted magmas being deposited only to the south of the caldera—if the early-erupted magma body resided to the south and the late-erupted magma body was located to the north. Our alternative model is consistent with the patchy distribution of thermal anomalies and the inference of co-eruption of distinct magma types in active volcanic areas such as the central Taupo Volcanic Zone.

The Bishop Tuff giant magma body: An alternative to the Standard Model

Large caldera-forming eruptions have long been a focus of both petrological and volcanological studies; petrologists have used the eruptive products to probe conditions of magma storage (and thus processes that drive magma evolution), while volcanologists have used them to study the conditions under which large volumes of magma are transported to, and emplaced on, the Earth's surface. Traditionally, both groups have worked on the assumption that eruptible magma is stored within a single long-lived melt body. Over the past decade, however, advances in analytical techniques have provided new views of magma storage regions, many of which provide evidence of multiple melt lenses feeding a single eruption, and/or rapid pre-eruptive assembly of large volumes of melt. These new petrological views of magmatic systems have not yet been fully integrated into volcanological perspectives of caldera-forming eruptions. Here we explore the implications of complex magma reservoir configurations for eruption dynamics and caldera formation. We first examine mafic systems, where stacked-sill models have long been invoked but which rarely produce explosive eruptions. An exception is the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull volcano, Iceland, where seismic and petrologic data show that multiple sills at different depths fed a multi-phase (explosive and effusive) eruption. Extension of this concept to larger mafic caldera-forming systems suggests a mechanism to explain many of their unusual features, including their protracted explosivity, spatially variable compositions and pronounced intra-eruptive pauses. We then review studies of more common intermediate and silicic caldera-forming systems to examine inferred conditions of magma storage, time scales of melt accumulation, eruption triggers, eruption dynamics and caldera collapse. By compiling data from large and small, and crystal-rich and crystal-poor, events, we compare eruptions that are well explained by simple evacuation of a zoned magma chamber (termed the Standard Model by Gualda and Ghiorso, 2013 ) to eruptions that are better explained by tapping multiple, rather than single, melt lenses stored within a largely crystalline mush (which we term complex magma reservoirs). We then discuss the implications of magma storage within complex, rather than simple, reservoirs for identifying magmatic systems with the potential to produce large eruptions, and for monitoring eruption progress under conditions where successive melt lenses may be tapped. We conclude that emerging views of complex magma reservoir configurations provide exciting opportunities for re-examining volcanological concepts of caldera-forming systems.

Calderas and magma reservoirs

Decompression experiments of a crystal-free rhyolitic liquid with ≈ 6.6 wt. % H2O were carried out at a pressure range from 250 MPa to 30–75 MPa in order to characterize effects of magma ascent rate and temperature on bubble nucleation kinetics, especially on the bubble number density (BND, the number of bubbles produced per unit volume of liquid). A first series of experiments at 800°C and fast decompression rates (10–90 MPa/s) produced huge BNDs (≈ 2 × 1014 m−3 at 10 MPa/s ; ≈ 2 × 1015 m−3 at 90 MPa/s), comparable to those in natural silicic pumices from Plinian eruptions (1015–1016 m−3). A second series of experiments at 700°C and 1 MPa/s produced BNDs (≈ 9×1012 m−3) close to those observed at 800°C and 1 MPa/s (≈ 6 × 1012 m−3), showing that temperature has an insignificant effect on BNDs at a given decompression rate. Our study strengthens the theory that the BNDs are good markers of the decompression rate of magmas in volcanic conduits, irrespective of temperature. Huge number densities of small bubbles in natural silicic pumices from Plinian eruptions imply that a major nucleation event occurs just below the fragmentation level, at which the decompression rate of ascending magmas is a maximum (≥ 1 MPa/s).

Xiangyun Shi

Papers

An approach to reconstruct the thermal history in active magmatic systems: Implications for the Los Humeros volcanic complex, Mexico