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The magmatic plumbing system beneath El Hierro (Canary Islands): constraints from phenocrysts and naturally quenched basaltic glasses in submarine rocks

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Abstract

A thermobarometric and petrologic study of basanites erupted from young volcanic cones along the submarine portions of the three El Hierro rift zones (NE-Rift, NW-Rift and S-Ridge) has been performed to reconstruct magma plumbing and storage beneath the island. Mineral-melt thermobarometry applied to naturally quenched glass and clinopyroxene rims yields pressures ranging from 350 to 1070 MPa with about 80% of the calculated pressures being in the range of 600–800 MPa. This corresponds to a depth range of 19–26 km, implying that the main level of final crystal fractionation is within the uppermost mantle. No systematic dependence between sample locality and fractionation pressures could be observed. Olivine and clinopyroxene crystals in the rocks are complexly zoned and have, on an inter-sample as well as on an intra-sample scale, highly variable core and rim compositions. This can best be explained by mixing of multiply saturated (olivine, magnetite, clinopyroxene, ilmenite), moderately evolved magmas with more mafic magmas being either only saturated with olivine + spinel or with olivine + spinel + clinopyroxene. The inter-sample differences indicate derivation from small, isolated magma chambers which have undergone distinct fractionation and mixing histories. This is in contrast to oceanic intraplate volcanoes situated on plumes with high melt supply rates, e.g. Kilauea Volcano (Hawaii), where magma is mainly transported through a central conduit system and stored in a shallow magma chamber prior to injection into the rift zones. The plumbing system beneath El Hierro rather resembles the magma storage systems beneath, e.g. Madeira or La Palma, indicating that small, intermittent magma chambers might be a common feature of oceanic islands fed by plumes with relatively low fluxes, which results in only limited and periodic magma supply.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the captains and crews of the cruises M43-1 and POS270 who helped to recover the samples. Help with the microprobe work by B. Mader and P. Appel as well as very fruitful discussions with Marc-Antoine Longpré and Marc-Sebastian M. Krienitz are very much appreciated. Two anonymous reviewers gave us critical and very constructive reviews, which have helped to improve the paper. This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through grants HA 2100/5-3 and HA2001/6-1.

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  1. GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Telegrafenberg, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Nicole A. Stroncik

  2. Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Universität Bremen, Postfach 330440, 28334, Bremen, Germany

    Andreas Klügel

  3. IFM-GEOMAR, Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften, Wischhofstr. 1-3, 24148, Kiel, Germany

    Thor H. Hansteen

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Correspondence to Nicole A. Stroncik.

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Stroncik, N.A., Klügel, A. & Hansteen, T.H. The magmatic plumbing system beneath El Hierro (Canary Islands): constraints from phenocrysts and naturally quenched basaltic glasses in submarine rocks. Contrib Mineral Petrol 157, 593–607 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00410-008-0354-5

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