INTRODUCTIONSu baerial magmas solidify at a pressure of -1 bar, but the pressure on submarine magmas ranges from near I bar to several hundred bars, depending on the water depth at which they erupt. Even over this small pressure range, the vesicularity and vesicle-gas composition of submarine magmas of constant bulk composition can change dramatically, reflecting the large differences in volume between gaseous a nd melt species, the large compressibility of the gas phase at these low pressures, and the increasing (but different) solubilities of all gaseous species with pressure in this pressure range. Thus, the well-known negative corr elation between eruption depth a nd vesicularity of subm arine magmas reflects the degassing of magmas at progressively lower pressures under conditions where the exsolving vapor is unable to escape fully from the m agma (e.g. Moore, 1965, (!) Oxford University Press 1995 1970Moore & Schilling, 1973). Likewise, the different solubilities of the major (e.g. C02, H20, S) and minor (e.g. rare gases) volatile species are expected (though not yet observed) to lead to a strong dependence of the composition of the vapor in the vesicles on depth (e.g. Moore, 1965Moore, , 1970Jambon et al., 1985;Gerlach, 1986; ]ambon et al., 1986; Zhang & Zindler, 1989; Bottinga & Javoy, 1990b). Similarly, it is thought that differing solubilities of oxidized and reduced gaseous species can result in systematic changes in the oxidation state of iron and sulfur in erupting magmas as a function of the degree and depth of degassing (e.g. Sa to, 1978;Mathez, 1984; Carmichael & G hiorso, 1986;Christie et al., 1986;Wallace & Carmichael, 1992;Nilsson & Peach, 1993). In view of the importance of the exsolution of a vapor phase from submarine magmas in . understanding their vesicle contents, their eruptive style, aspects of their chemistry, and ultimately the chemistry of the atmosphere and ocean (e.g. Javoy et al., 1982;Des Marais, 1985; Marty & ]ambon, 1987;Gerlach, 1989; Zhang & Zindler, 1989, it is surprising how little is known about the behavior of volatile components in these systems in the pressure range over which these magmas are erupted. For example, only recently has the solubility of carbon dioxide, the major component of vesicle gases in mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) (Killingley & Muenow, 1975;Moore et al., 1977;Delaney et al., 1978;]ambon & Zimmermann, 1987), been measured in MORB melt by experiment (Stolper & Holloway, 1988;Shilobreyeva & Kadik, 1989; Mattey, 1991; Pan et al., 1991 ;Pawley et al., 1992;Trull et al. , 1992) . Water is even more abundant than carbon dioxide in most MORB glasses, but we know of no measurements of the solubility of water in MORB liquids at eruptive conditions, although water solubilities have been measured at higher pressures ( 1-10 kbar) in other basaltic compositions (Khitarov et al., 1959;Hamilton et al., 1964;Kadik et al., 1971 ). Kadik et al. (1972} reported mixed C0 2 and H 2 0 solubilities in basaltic melts at 1-3 kbar, but their experiments did not extend to...