Melt inclusions in quartz phenocrysts: The acid rocks of the Bannaya–Karymshina area, Kamchatka

Abstract

The Bannaya–Karymshina area is situated in southern Kamchatka west of the East Kamchatka Volcanic Belt in the backarc part of the Kuril–Kamchatka island arc. The area is unique in that it contains abundant ejecta of calc-alkaline, acid, mostly ignimbrite, volcanism for a period of 4 Ma. Three rock complexes can be identified with rhyolitic and rhyodacitic compositions: Middle Pliocene ignimbrites, crystalloclastic tuffs of Eopleistocene age that fill in the Karymshina caldera, and Early Pleistocene intrusions. All of these are composed of rocks with normal total alkalinity, while the concentration of potassium places them at the boundary between moderate and high-potassium rocks. We sought to determine the composition of primary acid melts by studying the composition of the silicate phase in homogeneous melt inclusions that were conserved in quartz phenocrysts hosted by volcanic rocks of varying ages. Practically all the melt inclusions we analyzed show increased total alkalies and are in the class of trachyrhyodacites and trachyrhyolites, with the varieties of the highest alkali content being alkaline rhyolites and comendites; the concentration of K₂O classifies them as subalkaline rocks; one also notes the increased alumina of the acid melts. The compositions and spatial locations of the melt inclusions in quartz phenocrysts provide evidence of a three-phase crystallization in magma chambers at different depths. According to the experimental data, the quartz phenocrysts crystallized in a water-saturated melt at pressures of 0.1 to 3.5 kbars.