Vesiculation of rhyolite magma in the IDDP-1 borehole at Krafla, Iceland

• Main Authors: Trewick, Laura, Tuffen, Hugh, Owen, Jacqueline, Kennedy, Ben M., Eichelberger, John, Zierenberg, Robert
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: European Geosciences Union 2016
• Subjects: Krafla; Iceland
• Online Access: https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/83119/

In 2009 the IDDP-1 borehole at Krafla, Iceland unexpectedly intersected rhyolitic magma at 2.1 km depth [1,2], providing unprecedented opportunities to investigate silicic melt formation and storage, and potential for powerful geothermal energy production. A key objective is to constrain the nature of the rhyolitic melt and its response to drilling. As no intact core was extracted, evidence is fragmental - from glassy rhyolitic clasts retrieved from the cuttings. These exhibit a range of glass colours, vesicularities and phenocryst contents [1,2]. Here we use benchtop infra-red spectroscopy and petrological microscopy to characterise the H2O concentrations and bubble number densities within diverse glassy clasts, complemented by 1 Atm bubble growth experiments with a heated stage to investigate vesicle growth. Juvenile glassy clasts were divided into three categories (brown>banded>very dark glass). H2O concentrations within clasts showed some spatial variability, with enrichment towards bubble-rich areas that may be resorption-related but could not be adequately characterised with a benchtop source. However, mean values ranged from 1.41-1.68 wt %, with no statistically significant difference between clast types. This is broadly consistent with previous studies [1,2]. Bubble growth rates in all clast types were determined during isothermal dwells at 600, 650 and 700 C, for which bubbles grew at 0.03-0.09, 0.11-0.31, and 0.46-0.82 m s-1 respectively. The highest growth rates were measured for the most water-rich clast analysed - a banded clast with mean H2O of 1.68 wt %, and initially-larger bubbles also grew more rapidly. Measured bubble number densities (BNDs) range from 10[11.7] m-3 in banded clasts to 10[13.1] m-3 in very dark clasts, corresponding to decompression rates of 0.1-1 MPa/s [3], although experimentation on IDDP-1 magma is needed to properly calibrate BNDs as a decompression rate meter. Nonetheless, such decompression rates suggest nucleation occurred over tens-hundreds of seconds, as pressure ...