Catherine Booth,, Matthew D. Jackson, R. Stephen J. Sparks, Alison C. Rust.

A new paper from SEMACRET team focus on understanding magma pathways by unravelling the link between deep source reservoirs, shallow magma chambers and large-scale volcanic eruptions.

Through numerical modelling, our scientists expand on previous thermal models of magmatic processes by considering key controls on magma accumulation in deep reservoirs.

Results from this work suggest that the large amounts of magma involved in large-scale volcanic eruptions are accumulated in the deep crust rather than at shallow sub-volcanic depths. The release of these magmas to the cool upper crust is dictated by their buoyancy. When emplaced in shallow magmatic chambers, the eruptible silicic magmas must be quickly evacuated in order to generate large-scale eruptions; else these magmas cool to form plutons. Therefore, the largest and least frequent eruptions are a consequence of rapid segregation of magma from deep crustal reservoirs.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add1595