Permeability development in vesiculating magmas: implications for fragmentation |
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Authors: | Caroline Klug Katharine V Cashman |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Geological Sciences, 1272 University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA, US |
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Abstract: | Fragmentation, or the "coming apart" of magma during a plinian eruption, remains one of the least understood processes in
volcanology, although assumptions about the timing and mechanisms of fragmentation are key parameters in all existing eruption
models. Despite evidence to the contrary, most models assume that fragmentation occurs at a critical vesicularity (volume
percent vesicles) of 75–83%. We propose instead that the degree to which magma is fragmented is determined by factors controlling
bubble coalescence: magma viscosity, temperature, bubble size distribution, bubble shapes, and time. Bubble coalescence in
vesiculating magmas creates permeability which serves to connect the dispersed gas phase. When sufficiently developed, permeability
allows subsequent exsolved and expanded gas to escape, thus preserving a sufficiently interconnected region of vesicular magma
as a pumice clast, rather than fully fragmenting it to ash. For this reason pumice is likely to preserve information about
(a) how permeability develops and (b) the critical permeability needed to insure clast preservation. We present measurements
and calculations that constrain the conditions (vesicularity, bubble size distribution, time, pressure difference, viscosity)
necessary for adequate permeability to develop. We suggest that magma fragments explosively to ash when and where, in a heterogeneously
vesiculating magma, these conditions are not met. Both the development of permeability by bubble wall thinning and rupture
and the loss of gas through a permeable network of bubbles require time, consistent with the observation that degree of fragmentation
(i.e., amount of ash) increases with increasing eruption rate.
Received: 5 July 1995 / Accepted: 27 December 1995 |
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Keywords: | Vesiculation Fragmentation Permeability Pumice Ash Bubbles |
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