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VOLCANOLOGY

Magma behaving brittly

Nature Geoscience volume 14, pages 180–181 (2021)Cite this article

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Low viscosities may not preclude brittle magma fragmentation under certain conditions, according to field observations and experimental evidence that suggest the conditions for brittle fragmentation may be met in many explosive mafic eruptions.

Magma fragmentation breaks magma apart, transforming it from a continuous liquid that contains gas bubbles into a continuous gas that contains fragments of liquid magma, known as pyroclasts1. It can take place in either a solid (brittle) or a liquid (fluidal) state and is driven by the nucleation and rapid expansion of gas bubbles as magma ascends and decompresses. Whether fragmentation is brittle or fluidal is determined by the response of the melt to applied strain from bubble expansion or shearing1. For a magma to break brittly, it must be deformed faster than it can relax by viscous flow; that is, the strain rate must be high enough to cause the melt to behave as a glassy solid. The transition from viscous to brittle behaviour is known as the glass transition and depends on temperature, strain rate, viscosity and melt composition4. Brittle fragmentation of low-viscosity mafic magmas requires exceedingly high strain rates or a rapid change in either viscosity (for example, through late-stage crystallization)5,6 or temperature7. Instead, explosive mafic fragmentation is generally fluidal, where magma is stretched and pulled apart in response to extension and shearing in lava jets and fountains8,9.

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Fig. 1: Magma fragmentation in the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, Hawai’i.

Hum Images / Alamy Stock Photo.

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, UK

    Emma J. Liu

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Liu, E.J. Magma behaving brittly. Nat. Geosci. 14, 180–181 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00724-1

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