Rapid ascent of rhyolitic magma at Chaitén volcano, Chile

Jonathan M. Castro (1) , Donald B. Dingwell (2)

1 ISTO - Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans
2 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences [Munich]

Although rhyolite magma has fuelled some of the Earth's largest explosive volcanic eruptions, our understanding of these events is incomplete due to the previous lack of direct observation of these eruptions. On 1 May 2008, Chaitén volcano in Chile erupted rhyolite magma unexpectedly and explosively. Here, petrological and experimental data are presented that indicate that the hydrous rhyolite magma at Chaitén ascended very rapidly from storage depth to near-surface, with velocities of the order of one metre per second.

Domains: Volcanology; Global Changes

Jonathan M. Castro, Donald B. Dingwell. Rapid ascent of rhyolitic magma at Chaitén volcano, Chile. Nature, 2009, 461 (8 octobre), pp.780-784. ⟨10.1038/nature08458⟩. ⟨insu-00423346⟩