Magmatic water contents determined through clinopyroxene: Examples from the Western Canary Islands, Spain

Abstract

Water is a key parameter in magma genesis, magma evolution, and resulting eruption styles, because it controls the density, the viscosity, as well as the melting and crystallization behavior of a melt. The parental water content of a magma is usually measured through melt inclusions in minerals such as olivine, a method which may be hampered, however, by the lack of melt inclusions suitable for analysis, or postentrapment changes in their water content. An alternative way to reconstruct the water content of a magma is to use nominally anhydrous minerals (NAMs), such as pyroxene, which take up low concentrations of hydrogen as a function of the magma's water content. During magma degassing and eruption, however, NAMs may dehydrate. We therefore tested a method to reconstruct the water contents of dehydrated clinopyroxene phenocrysts from the Western Canary islands (n=28) through rehydration experiments followed by infrared and Mossbauer spectroscopy. Employing currently available crystal/melt partitioning data, the results of the experiments were used to calculate parental water contents of 0.710.07 to 1.490.15 wt % H2O for Western Canary magmas during clinopyroxene crystallization at upper mantle conditions. This H2O range is in agreement with calculated water contents using plagioclase-liquid-hygrometry, and with previously published data for mafic lavas from the Canary Islands and comparable ocean island systems elsewhere. Utilizing NAMs in combination with hydrogen treatment can therefore serve as a proxy for pre-eruptive H2O contents, which we anticipate becoming a useful method applicable to mafic rocks where pyroxene is the main phenocryst phase.