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The Blacktail Creek Tuff: an analytical and experimental study of rhyolites from the Heise volcanic field, Yellowstone hotspot system

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Abstract

The magma storage conditions of the 6.62 Ma Blacktail Creek Tuff eruption, belonging to the Heise volcanic field (6.62–4.45 Ma old) of the Yellowstone hotspot system, have been investigated by combining thermobarometric and experimental approaches. The results from different geothermometers (e.g., Fe–Ti oxides, feldspar pairs, apatite and zircon solubility, and Ti in quartz) indicate a pre-eruptive temperature in the range 825–875 °C. The temperature estimated using two-pyroxene pairs varies in a range of 810–950 °C, but the pyroxenes are probably not in equilibrium with each other, and the analytical results of melt inclusion in pyroxenes indicate a complex history for clinopyroxene, which hosts two compositionally different inclusion types. One natural Blacktail Creek Tuff rock sample has been used to determine experimentally the equilibrium phase assemblages in the pressure range 100–500 MPa and a water activity range 0.1–1.0. The experiments have been performed at fluid-present conditions, with a fluid phase composed of H2O and CO2, as well as at fluid-absent conditions. The stability of the quartzo-feldspathic phases is similar in both types of experiments, but the presence of mafic minerals such as biotite and clinopyroxene is strongly dependent on the experimental approach. Possible explanations are given for this discrepancy which may have strong impacts on the choice of appropriate experimental approaches for the determination of magma storage conditions. The comparison of the composition of natural phases and of experimentally synthesized phases confirms magma storage temperatures of 845–875 °C. Melt water contents of 1.5–2.5 wt% H2O are required to reproduce the natural Blacktail Creek Tuff mineral assemblage at these temperatures. Using the Ti-in-quartz barometer and the Qz–Ab–Or proportions of natural matrix glasses, coexisting with quartz, plagioclase and sanidine, the depth of magma storage is estimated to be in a pressure range between 130 and 250 MPa.

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Acknowledgments

We want to express our appreciation to Eric H. Christiansen and two anonymous reviewers for their critical, thorough reviews and comments improving this paper substantially. We also thank Otto Dietrich and Julian Feige for preparing the thin sections, Eric Wolff and Martin Erdmann for assistance in operating the electron microprobe, Oliver Preuß and Carolin Klahn for technical assistance and Marvin Mätschke and Rebecca Plähn for contributing results of their Bachelor theses. This study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, project Ho 1337/22). Special thanks go to Andreas Audetat for providing quartz standard material to calibrate our microprobe measurements on titanium in quartz.

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Correspondence to Torsten Bolte.

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Communicated by Jochen Hoefs.

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410_2015_1112_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Comparison of melt H2O contents of six pre-hydrated Blacktail Creek Tuff rhyolite standard glasses by Fourier Transformed Infrared (IR; y-axis) and the difference in total of electron microprobe analyses (EMPA; x-axis) for one representative analytical session. The vertical error bars represent the error in IR-analyses and the horizontal error bars represent the standard deviation (σ) of EMPA analyses. The regression curve is used to correct the experimental glass H2O contents by the formula H2O glass = H2O by difference/x, whereas x varies in the range of 1.00–1.24 dependent on each single session. Final water contents of experimental glasses are reported in Table 3 (PDF 586 kb)

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Bolte, T., Holtz, F., Almeev, R. et al. The Blacktail Creek Tuff: an analytical and experimental study of rhyolites from the Heise volcanic field, Yellowstone hotspot system. Contrib Mineral Petrol 169, 15 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00410-015-1112-0

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