No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

From (3. F. Becker's and L. V. Pirsson's early enunciations linking the dynamics of magma chambers to the rock records of sills and plutons to this day, two features stand at the centre of nearly every magmatic process: solidification fronts and phenocrysts. The structure and behaviour of the envisioned solidification front, however, has been mostly that akin to non-silicate, non-multiply-saturated systems, which has led to confusion in appreciating its role in magmatic evolution. The common habit of intruding magmas to carry significant amounts of phenocrysts, which can lead to efficient ffactionation, layering, and interstitial melt flow within extensive mush piles, when coupled with solidification fronts, allows a broad understanding of the processes leading to the rock records of sills and lava lakes. These same processes are fundamental to understanding all magmas.The spatial manifestation of the liquidus and solidus is the Solidification Front (SF); all magmas, stationary or in transit, are encased by SFs. In the ideal case of an initially crystal-free, cooling magma, crystallinity increases from nucleation on the leading liquidus edge to a holocrystalline rock at the trailing solidus. The package of SF isotherms advances inward, thickening with time and, depending on location --roof, floor, or walls --and the initial crystallinity of the magma, is instrumental in controlling magmatic evolution. Bimodal volcanism as well as much of the structure of the oceanic crust may arise from the behaviour of SFs.In mafic magmas, somewhere near a crystallinity (N) of 55% (vol), depending on the phase assemblage, the SF changes from a viscous fluid (suspension (0