Recent discoveries of isotopically diverse minerals, i.e., zircons, quartz, and feldspars, in large-volume ignimbrites and smaller lavas from the Snake River Plain (SRP; Idaho, USA), Iceland, Kamchatka Peninsula, and other environments suggest that this phenomenon characterizes many silicic units studied by in situ methods. This observation leads to the need for new models of silicic magma petrogenesis that involve double or triple recycling of zircon-saturated rocks. Initial partial melts are produced in small quantities in which zircons and other minerals undergo solution reprecipitation and inherit isotopic signatures of the immediate environment of the host magma batch. Next, isotopically diverse polythermal magma batches with inherited crystals merge together into larger volume magma bodies, where they mix and then erupt. Concave-up and polymodal crystal size distributions of zircons and quartz observed in large-volume ignimbrites may be explained by two or three episodes of solution and reprecipitation. Hafnium isotope diversity in zircons demonstrates variable mixing of crustal melts and mantle-derived silicic differentiates. The low δ 18 O values of magmas with δ 18 O-diverse zircons indicate that magma generation happens by remelting of variably hydrothermally altered, and thus diverse in δ 18 O, protoliths from which the host magma batch, minute or voluminous, inherited low-δ 18 O values. This also indicates that the processes that generate zircon diversity happen at shallow depths of a few kilometers, where meteoric water can circulate at large water/rock ratios to imprint low δ 18 O values on the protolith. We further review newly emerging isotopic evidence of diverse zircons and their appearance at the end of the magmatic evolution of many longlived large-volume silicic centers in the SRP and elsewhere, evidence indicating that the genesis of rhyolites by recycling their sometimes hydrothermally altered subsolidus predecessors may be a common evolutionary trend for many rhyolites worldwide, especially in hotspot and rift environments with high magma and heat fl uxes. Next, we use thermomechanical fi nite element modeling of rhyolite genesis and to explain (1) the formation of magma batches in stress fi elds by dike capture or defl ection as a function of underpressurization and overpressurization, respectively; (2) the merging of neighboring magma batches together via four related mechanisms: melting through the screen rock and melt zone expansion, brittle failure of a separating screen of rocks, buoyant merging of magmas, and explosive merging by an overpressurized interstitial fl uid phase (heated meteoric water); and (3) mixing time scales and their effi cacies on extended horizontal scales, as expressed by marker method particle tracking. The en visioned advective thermomechanical mechanisms of magma segregation in the upper crust may characterize periods of increased basaltic output from the mantle, leading to increased silicic melt production, but may also serve as analogues for magma chambers ...

Experiments on degassing of water-saturated granite melts with a pressure drop from 100 and 450 MPa to 40 and 120 MPa, respectively, at temperatures close to feldspar liquidus (750-700 degrees C), were carried out to determine the modality of water exsolution and vesicle formation at the liquidus temperature. Pressure-drop rates as small as approximately 100 bar/day were used. Uniform space distributions of bubbles of exsolved water were obtained with starting glass containing a small fraction (approximate to 0.5 vol.%) of trapped air bubbles. Volume crystallization of feldspar was observed in degassed melts supplied with seeds. Bubble size distributions (BSD) measured in granite glasses after degassing are presented. Data on vesicle characteristics (number, radius, area, elongation) were acquired on images digitized with standard software, while the reconstruction of size distributions was performed with the Schwartz-Saltikov "unfolding" procedure. Bubble size distributions of size classes in the range 5-1000 mu m were acquired with proper magnification and satisfactory statistical reliability of determined number densities. The BSDs of the experimental samples are compared with the results of measurements of rapidly degassed products of Mt. Etna and Vulcano Island. Many particular features of the bubble nucleation and growth can be distinguished in an individual BSD. However, the general BSD of the whole data set, including natural ones, can be relatively well described with linear regression in bilogarithmic coordinates. The slope of this regression is approximately 2.8 +/- 0.1. This dependence is in striking contrast with distributions theoretically predicted with classical nucleation models based on homogeneous nucleation of vesicles. The theoretical distribution requires the occurrence of strong maxima that are not observed in our experimental and natural samples, thus arguing for heterogeneous nucleation mechanisms

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This paper examines the role of the position and orientation of a regional fault in the roof of a magma chamber on stress distribution, mechanical failure, and dyking using 2D finite element numerical simulations. The study pertains to the magma chamber behavior in the relatively short time intervals of several hundreds to thousand of years. The magma chamber is represented as an elliptical inclusion (eccentricity, a/b=0.12) at a relative depth, H/a, of 0.9. The fault has a 45°dip and is represented by a frictionless fracture. The temperature field in the host rock is calculated assuming a quasisteady-state thermal regime that develops through periodic episodes of magma supply. The rheology of the surrounding rocks is treated using viscoelasticity with temperature activated strain-rate dependent viscosity. Strain weakening of the rocks in the ductile zone is described within the frame of the Dynamic Power Law model . The magma pressure is coupled with the deformation of the rock mass hosting the chamber, including the fault. The variation of magma pressure in response to magma supply and chamber deformation is calculated in the elastic and viscoelastic regimes. The latter corresponds to slow filling, while the former represents a filling time much less than the viscous relaxation time scale. The resulting "equation of state" for the magma chamber couples the magma pressure with the chamber volume in the elastic regime, and with the filling rate for the viscoelastic regime. Analysis of stresses is used to predict dyke propagation conditions, and the mechanical failure of the chamber roof for different fault positions and magma overpressures. Results show that an outward dipping fault located on the periphery of the chamber roof hinders the propagation of dykes to the surface, causing magma to accumulate under the footwall of the fault. At high to moderate overpressures (30-40 MPa), the fault causes localized shear failure and chamber roof collapse that might lead to the first stage of a caldera-forming eruption.