A 3100-year history of argon isotopic and compositional variation at El Chichón volcano

El Chichón volcano has produced at least 11 eruptive events in the past 8000 years, all of which display a relatively constant trachyandesitic composition. The constancy of the eruptive products attests to the tapping of a long-lived magma chamber and suggests a system held in steady state between the influx of basaltic magma and differentiation of resident magma. We have sampled eruptive products from eight of these events, subjecting their dominant phenocryst phases (plagioclase and hornblende) to argon isotopic analysis in order to investigate the dynamics of a steady state magmatic system. Plagioclase from the older eruptions, 1500 yr BP, 1600 yr BP, 2000 yr BP and 3100 yr BP, display variable enrichment of ⁴⁰Ar (excess argon), whereas hornblende from the same eruptions shows little or no enrichment. In contrast, both plagioclase and hornblende phenocrysts from the younger eruptions in 1982, 550 yr BP, 900 yr BP and 1250 yr BP have argon isotopic ratios near-atmospheric values. Isochron analysis of these mineral phases rules out xenocrystic contamination as the source of excess argon, while mafic enclaves and isotopic and compositional zoning evidence frequent recharge events, suggesting the source of this argon is most likely the same as the source of this basaltic magma; correlation with Cl points to melt/vapor inclusions as the primary host for Ar within the phenocrysts. Argon isotopic variations point to a disturbance of the system between 1500 yr BP and 1250 yr BP, while compositional evidence for a major mafic input is present in the 900 yr BP eruption, indicating a complex relationship between recharge and isotopic signature of eruptive products. The amount of excess argon within a plagioclase phenocryst are a function of variations in melt and vapor inclusion abundance, time elapsed between melt/vapor inclusion entrapment and eruption, variations in Ar abundance in melt (itself a function of vapor exsolution timing) and time variations in Ar isotopic composition of the melt; subdued behavior of hornblende is due to slower diffusion and minimal inclusions.