Textures in an exceptionally preserved effusive rhyolite conduit at Torfajökull, Iceland, indicate that rising magma repeatedly fractured and healed at shallow levels in the conduit (RFH process). Anastomosing tuffisite veins filled by fine-grained juvenile clasts were generated by shear fracture of highly viscous magma in the glass transition interval. Welding of the particulate material during subsequent deformation led to thorough healing of veins, allowing repeated fracture of the same body of magma. We propose that the RFH process is a rechargeable trigger mechanism for hybrid seismicity and show that the time scale of the process and the fractures formed by it are consistent with the repeat time and magnitude of hybrid earthquakes during silicic eruptions. The RFH process may also form the flow banding that is nearly ubiquitous in obsidian.

A careful analysis of low-frequency seismic events on Soufrièere Hills volcano, Montserrat, points to a source mechanism that is non-destructive, repetitive, and has a stationary source location. By combining these seismological clues with new field evidence and numerical magma flow modelling, we propose a seismic trigger model which is based on brittle failure of magma in the glass transition. Loss of heat and gas from the magma results in a strong viscosity gradient across a dyke or conduit. This leads to a buildup of shear stress near the conduit wall where magma can rupture in a brittle manner, as field evidence from a rhyolitic dyke demonstrates. This brittle failure provides seismic energy, the majority of which is trapped in the conduit or dyke forming the lowfrequency coda of the observed seismic signal. The trigger source location marks the transition from ductile conduit flow to friction-controlled magma ascent. As the trigger mechanism is governed by the depth-dependent magma parameters, the source location remains fixed at a depth where the conditions allow brittle failure. This is reflected in the fixed seismic source locations.

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In June 2011, an eruption of rhyolite magma began at the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex, southern Chile. By January 2012, explosive activity had declined from sustained pyroclastic (Plinian to sub-Plinian) fountaining to mixed gas and ash jetting punctuated by Vulcanian blasts. This explosive activity was accompanied by synchronous effusion of obsidian lava in a hybrid explosive-effusive eruption. Fortuitous climatic conditions permitted ground-based observation and video recording of transient vent dynamics as well as real-time collection of proximal juvenile ash as it sedimented from the active plume. The main eruptive vent complex and site of lava effusion was represented by two loci of Vulcanian blasts within a 2 single tephra cone containing a pancake-shaped proto-lava dome. These blast loci each consisted of clusters of sub-vents that expressed correlated shifts in eruption intensity, indicating the presence of partially connected and/or branching zones of high permeability within the upper conduit. Pyroclast textures were examined by X-ray computed microtomography and their permeability was modeled by lattice Boltzmann simulations. The porosity (39 to 67 %) and Darcian permeability (3.1x10-15 m 2 perpendicular to fabric to 3.8x10-11 m 2 parallel to fabric) of fine ash emitted during ash jetting indicates that the permeable zones comprised highly sheared, tube-like bubbly magma, and contrast with the low porosity (~17 %) and nul permeability of bombs ejected to hundreds of metres from the vent in Vulcanian blasts. Residual H 2 O content of ash (0.14 wt %) and two bombs (0.2-0.25 wt %), determined by Karl-Fischer titration indicate degassing of this pyroclastic material to near-atmospheric pressures. Ash textures and simple degassing/vesiculation models indicate the onset of permeability by ductile processes of shear-enhanced bubble coalescence in the upper 1 to 1.5 km of the conduit. Repeated ash jetting and Vulcanian blasts indicate that such ductile processes were not sufficiently effective to accommodate all degassing requirements, and additional brittle (e.g., fragmentation) events transiently assisted in maintaining an open-system degassing regime that permitted long-lived, hybrid explosive-effusive activity. The eruption at Cordón Caulle has provided an excellent opportunity to closely observe key processes of silicic volcanism.

It is proposed that fault textures in two dissected rhyolitic conduits in Iceland preserve evidence for shallow seismogenic faulting within rising magma during the emplacement of highly viscous lava flows. Detailed field and petrographic analysis of such textures may shed light on the origin of long-period and hybrid volcanic earthquakes at active volcanoes. There is evidence at each conduit investigated for multiple seismogenic cycles, each of which involved four distinct evolutionary phases. In phase 1, shear fracture of unrelaxed magma was triggered by shear stress accumulation during viscous flow, forming the angular fracture networks that initiated faulting cycles. Transient pressure gradients were generated as the fractures opened, which led to fluidisation and clastic deposition of fine-grained particles that were derived from the fracture walls by abrasion. Fracture networks then progressively coalesced and rotated during subsequent slip (phase 2), developing into cataclasite zones with evidence for multiple localised slip events, fluidisation and grain size reduction. Phase 2 textures closely resemble those formed on seismogenic tectonic faults characterised by friction-controlled stick-slip behaviour. Increasing cohesion of cataclasites then led to aseismic, distributed ductile deformation (phase 3) and generated deformed cataclasite zones, which are enriched in metallic oxide microlites and resemble glassy pseudotachylite. Continued annealing and deformation eventually erased all structures in the cataclasite and formed microlite-rich flow bands in obsidian (phase 4). Overall, the mixed brittle-ductile textures formed in the magma appear similar to those formed in lower crustal rocks close to the brittle-ductile transition, with the rheological response mediated by strain-rate variations and frictional heating. Fault processes in highly viscous magma are compared with those elsewhere in the crust, and this comparison is used to appraise existing models of volcano seismic activity. Based on the textures observed, it is suggested that patterns of long-period and hybrid earthquakes at silicic lava domes reflect friction-controlled stick-slip movement and eventual healing of fault zones in magma, which are an accelerated and smaller-scale analogue of tectonic faults.

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The mechanisms of hazardous silicic eruptions are controlled by complex, poorly-understood conduit processes. Observations of recent Chilean rhyolite eruptions have revealed the importance of hybrid activity, involving simultaneous explosive and effusive emissions from a common vent. Such behavior hinges upon the ability of gas to decouple from magma in the shallow conduit. Tuffisite veins are increasingly suspected to be a key facilitator of outgassing, as they repeatedly provide a transient permeable escape route for volcanic gases. Intersection of foam domains by tuffisite veins appears critical to efficient outgassing. However, knowledge is currently lacking into textural heterogeneities within shallow conduits, their relationship with tuffisite vein propagation, and the implications for fragmentation and degassing processes. Similarly, the magmatic vesiculation response to upper conduit pressure perturbations, such as those related to the slip of dense magma plugs, remains largely undefined. Here we provide a detailed characterization of an exceptionally large tuffisite vein within a rhyolitic obsidian bomb ejected during transitional explosive-effusive activity at Chaitén, Chile in May 2008. Vein textures and chemistry provide a time-integrated record of the invasion of a dense upper conduit plug by deeper fragmented magma. Quantitative textural analysis reveals diverse vesiculation histories of various juvenile clast types. Using vesicle size distributions, bubble number densities, zones of diffusive water depletion, and glass H 2 O concentrations, we propose a multi-step degassing/fragmentation history, spanning deep degassing to explosive bomb ejection. Rapid decompression events of ∼3-4 MPa are associated with fragmentation of foam and dense magma at ∼200-360 m depth in the conduit, permitting vertical gas and pyroclast mobility over hundreds of meters. Permeable pathway occlusion in the dense conduit plug by pyroclast accumulation and sintering preceded ultimate bomb ejection, which then triggered a final bubble nucleation event. Our results highlight how the vesiculation response of magma to decompression events is highly sensitive to the local melt volatile concentration, which is strongly spatially Saubin et al.Chaitén Tuffisites Record Conduit Processes heterogeneous. Repeated opening of pervasive tuffisite vein networks promotes this heterogeneity, allowing juxtaposition of variably volatile-rich magma fragments that are derived from a wide range of depths in the conduit. This process enables efficient but explosive removal of gas from rhyolitic magma and creates a complex textural collage within dense rhyolitic lava, in which neighboring fused clasts may have experienced vastly different degassing histories.