Phenocryst

About: Phenocryst is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4132 publications have been published within this topic receiving 158441 citations.

petrology and geochemistry of volcanic rocks dredged from the Okinawa Trough, an active back-arc basin

Abstract: Volcanic rocks dredged from the Okinawa Trough, an active back-arc basin behind the Ryukyu island arc (IA)-trench system associated with a subduction of the Philippine Sea plate, encompass a wide variety of petrology and geochemistry, ranging from basalts to rhyolites through andesites. The basalts, consisting of highly vesicular pillow lavas, are moderately porphyritic with phenocrysts of olivine, plagioclase and minor clinopyroxene. Their glass and bulk rock compositions, especially their large-ion lithophile element (LILE) abundances, are transitional between the Ryukyu IA basalts (LILE-enriched) and normal-type mid-ocean ridge basalts (N-MORBs, LILE-depleted). The rhyolites are moderately porphyritic, including phenocrysts of plagioclase and orthopyroxene with or without clinopyroxene and hornblende, and have the close geochemical affinity with the Ryukyu IA rhyolites. It follows that the rhyolites were derived from an IA-type source material similar to that for the Ryukyu IA volcanics, but the basalts were derived from a less LILE-enriched source material approaching that for N-MORBs. Available K-Ar ages indicate the rhyolitic volcanism prior to the basaltic one. It is, therefore, most likely that the magma source region beneath the Okinawa Trough has changed with time from an IA type to a N-MORB type during the back-arc rifting. On the other hand, the andesites are highly porphyritic with phenocrysts of plagioclase, orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene, and have the K-Ar age similar to that of the basalts. Most importantly, the andesites exhibit many lines of textural and compositional evidence for mixing between basaltic melt, and rhyolitic partial melt of pre-existing IA lower crust that was presumably heated by the former melt. This again suggests the structural transition of the magma source region beneath the Okinawa Trough, which may be most characteristic of the initial stage of back-arc basin volcanism in general.

Experimental phase equilibrium studies of garnet-bearing I-type volcanics and high-level intrusives from Northland, New Zealand

Abstract: Rare garnet phenocrysts and garnet-bearing xenoliths occur in high-silica, metaluminous to peraluminous andesites and dacites (and their high-level intrusive quartz diorite equivalents) from a Miocene calc-alkaline province in Northland, New Zealand. These garnets are among the most Ca-rich (17–28 mol% grossular) garnets of igneous origin so far recorded in calc-alkaline suite rocks. Associated minerals are dominant hornblende and plagioclase and minor augite, occurring as phenocrysts in xenoliths and as inclusions in the garnet. This mineralogy points to the I-type character of the garnet-bearing host magma compositions, and contrasts this garnet occurrence with the more frequently recorded grossular-poor (3–10 mol%) garnets with hypersthene, plagioclase, biotite and cordierite, found in S-type volcanic and intrusive host rocks.Detailed experimental work on a glass prepared from one of the garnet-bearing dacites closely constrains the conditions under which the natural phenocryst and xenolith mineral assemblages formed. This work was conducted over a pressure-temperature range of 8–20 kbar, 800–1050°C with 3–10 wt% of added H2O, defining overall phase relationships for these conditions. Importantly, amphibole only appears at temperatures of 900°C or less and clinopyroxene at >900°C (with 3wt% H2O). Orthopyroxene occurs with garnet at lower pressure (∼15 kbar with 3wt% H2O; ∼>10kbar with 5wt% H2O). Absence of orthopyroxene from the natural garnet-bearing assemblages indicates pressures above these limits during crystallisation. Plagioclase is markedly suppressed (with respect to temperature) with increasing H2O content, and for pressures of 10–15 kbar, the maximum H2O content possible in the magma with retention of clinopyroxene and plagioclase together (as evident in xenoliths) is 5–6 wt%. Finally, the lack of quartz in any of the xenoliths suggests magma H2O content higher than 3% (where quartz appears with amphibole at 900°C), since the quartz liquidus temperature decreases with increasing H2O content, and with decreasing pressure. In experiments with 5wt% H2O, a quartz-free field of crystallisation of garnet-clinopyroxene-amphibole-plagioclase occurs between 10 and 15 kbar and temperatures between 850 and 900°C. In addition, detailed experimentally-determined garnet compositional trends, together with ferromagnesian mineral compositional data for specific experiments with 5 wt% H2O added and run at 10-13 kbar and ∼900°C, suggest that the natural assemblages formed at these conditions. This implies that the parental dacitic magma must have been derived at mantle depths (the Northland crust is ∼25 km thick), and any basaltic or basaltic andesite precursor must have contained ∼2–3 wt% H2O.The unique nature of the Northland volcanics and high-level intrusives, preserving evidence of relatively grossular-rich garnet fractionation in the high-pressure crystallisation history of an originally mantle-derived magma, is attributed to a combination of unusually hydrous conditions in the source region, complex tectonic history involving obduction and subduction, possible incorporation of crustal slivers in a mantle-crust interaction zone, and relatively thin (∼25 km) crust.