Igneous sheet intrusions of various shapes, such as dikes and cone sheets, coexist as parts of complex volcanic plumbing systems likely fed by common sources. How they form is fundamental regarding volcanic hazards, yet no dynamic model simulates and predicts satisfactorily their diversity. Here we present scaled laboratory experiments that reproduced dikes and cone sheets under controlled conditions. Our models show that their formation is governed by a dimensionless ratio (Π 1 ), which describes the geometry of the magma source, and a dynamic dimensionless ratio (Π 2 ), which compares the viscous stresses in the flowing magma to the host rock strength. Plotting our experiments against these two numbers results in a phase diagram evidencing a dike and a cone sheet field, separated by a sharp transition that fits a power law. This result shows that dikes and cone sheets correspond to distinct physical regimes of magma emplacement in the crust. For a given host rock strength, cone sheets preferentially form when the source is shallow, relative to its lateral extent, or when the magma influx velocity (or viscosity) is high. Conversely, dikes form when the source is deep compared to its size, or when magma influx rate (or viscosity) is low. Both dikes and cone sheets may form from the same source, the shift from one regime to the other being then controlled by magma dynamics, i.e., different values of Π 2 . The extrapolated empirical dike-to-cone sheet transition is in good agreement with the occurrence of dikes and cone sheets in various natural volcanic settings.

A submarine eruption started off the south coast of El Hierro, Canary Islands, on 10 October 2011 and continues at the time of this writing (February 2012). In the first days of the event, peculiar eruption products were found floating on the sea surface, drifting for long distances from the eruption site. These specimens, which have in the meantime been termed "restingolites" (after the close-by village of La Restinga), appeared as black volcanic "bombs" that exhibit cores of white and porous pumice-like material. Since their brief appearance, the nature and origin of these "floating stones" has been vigorously debated among researchers, with important implications for the interpretation of the hazard potential of the ongoing eruption. The "restingolites" have been proposed to be either (i) juvenile high-silica magma (e.g. rhyolite), (ii) remelted magmatic material (trachyte), (iii) altered volcanic rock, or (iv) reheated hyaloclastites or zeolite from the submarine slopes of El Hierro. Here, we provide evidence that supports yet a different conclusion. We have analysed the textures and compositions of representative "restingolites" and compared the results to previous work on similar rocks found in the Canary Islands. Based on their high-silica content, the lack of igneous trace element signatures, the presence of remnant quartz crystals, jasper fragments and carbonate as well as wollastonite (derived from thermal overprint of carbonate) and their relatively high oxygen isotope values, we conclude that "restingolites" are in fact xenoliths from pre-island sedimentary layers that were picked up and heated by the ascending magma, causing them to partially melt and vesiculate. As they are closely resembling pumice in appearance, but are xenolithic in origin, we refer to these rocks as "xeno-pumice". The El Hierro xeno-pumices hence represent messengers from depth that help us to understand the interaction between ascending magma and crustal lithologies beneath the Canary Islands as well as in similar Atlantic islands that rest on sediment-covered ocean crust (e.g. Cape Verdes, Azores). The occurrence of "restingolites" indicates that crustal recycling is a relevant process in ocean islands, too, but does not herald the arrival of potentially explosive high-silica magma in the active plumbing system beneath El Hierro

We review the numerous experimental studies dedicated to unravelling the physics and dynamics of various parts of a volcanic plumbing system. Section 1 lists the model materials commonly used for model magmas or model rocks. We describe these materials' mechanical properties and discuss their suitability for modelling sub-volcanic processes. Section 2 examines the fundamental concepts of dimensional analysis and similarity in laboratory modelling. We provide a step-by-step explanation of how to apply dimensional analysis to laboratory models in order to identify fundamental physical laws that govern the modelled processes in dimensionless (i.e. scale independent) form. Section 3 summarises and discusses the past applications of laboratory models to understand numerous features of volcanic plumbing systems. These include: dykes, cone sheets, sills, laccoliths, caldera-related structures, ground deformation, magma/fault interactions, and explosive vents. We outline how laboratory models have yielded insights into the main geometric and mechanical controls on the development of each part of the volcanic

Felsic magma commonly pools within shallow mushroom-shaped magmatic intrusions, so-called laccoliths or cryptodomes, which can cause both explosive eruptions and collapse of the volcanic edifice. Deformation during laccolith emplacement is primarily considered to occur in the host rock. However, shallowly emplaced laccoliths (cryptodomes) show extensive internal deformation. While deformation of magma in volcanic conduits is an important process for regulating eruptive behavior, the effects of magma deformation on intrusion emplacement remain largely unexplored. In this study, we investigate the emplacement of the 0.57 km 3 rhyolitic Sandfell laccolith, Iceland, which formed at a depth of 500 m in a single intrusive event. By combining field measurements, 3D modeling, anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS), microstructural analysis, and FEM modeling we examine deformation in the magma to constrain its influence on intrusion emplacement. Concentric flow bands and S-C fabrics reveal contact-parallel magma flow during the initial stages of laccolith inflation. The magma flow fabric is overprinted by strain-localization bands (SLBs) and more than one third of the volume of the Sandfell laccolith displays concentric intensely fractured layers. A dominantly oblate magmatic fabric in the fractured areas and conjugate geometry of SLBs, and fractures in the fracture layers demonstrate that the magma was deformed by intrusive stresses. This implies that a large volume of magma became viscously stalled and was unable to flow during intrusion. Fine-grained groundmass and vesicle-poor rock adjacent to the fracture layers point to that the interaction between the SLBs and the flow bands at sub-solidus state caused the brittle-failure and triggered decompression degassing and crystallization, which led to rapid viscosity increase in the magma. The extent of syn-emplacement fracturing in the Sandfell laccolith further shows that strain-induced degassing limited the amount of eruptible magma by essentially solidifying the rim of the magma body. Our observations indicate that syn-emplacement changes in rheology, and the associated fracturing of intruding magma not only occur in volcanic conduits, but also play a major role in the emplacement of viscous magma intrusions in the upper kilometer of the crust.