Compositional Zoning in Kīlauea Olivine: A
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COMPOSITIONAL ZONING IN KĪLAUEA OLIVINE: A GEOCHEMICAL TOOL FOR INVESTIGATING MAGMATIC PROCESSES AT HAWAIIAN VOLCANOES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS MAY 2017 By Kendra J. Lynn Dissertation Committee: Michael O. Garcia, Chairperson Thomas Shea Julia Hammer Eric Hellebrand Michael Mottl ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my grandfather, Charles A. Thomas. His emotional, intellectual, and financial support have allowed me to chase this dream and make it a reality. He inspired me to travel, be inquisitive, and work hard without expectation of reward. It is my great honor to join him in the line of scientists in our family. It is ok to risk, to take adventures, to aspire to something so unimaginable that only you can see it. - Ann Bancroft i ka nānā no a ike By observing we learn. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I was five years old when I told my parents that I wanted to study volcanoes. The pursuit of this dream would not have been possible without the support of many and I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to those people. My success would not have been possible without the support of my graduate advisor, Michael Garcia, who allowed me to pursue the topics that fascinated me and provided tremendous support for those endeavors. I am deeply grateful to Thomas Shea, who once taught a diffusion workshop in my theoretical petrology class and has since become an irreplaceable collaborator in my work. Many thanks to Eric Hellebrand and Julia Hammer for being my professors for several classes, serving on all my committees, and providing technical analytical expertise. Finally, I am grateful to Michael Mottl, who served as my outside committee member and provided perspective on my work. My love for all subjects related to olivine crystals developed from stimulating discussions with Benoît Welsch, who generously provided advice during my research. Don Swanson’s vast knowledge of Kīlauea, the Keanakāko‘i Tephra, and stories of Pelehonuamea influenced my research questions and bigger picture ideas about explosive eruption periods. The Keanakāko‘i Tephra olivine projects were repeatedly supported by Fidel Costa, Gareth Fabbro, Jason Herrin, Dawn Sweeny-Ruth, and the Earth Observatory of Singapore, who welcomed me into their research groups and lab facilities numerous times. My 2015 EAPSI fellowship Singapore ‘ohana, and my NTU cohort Brandon Ng, Emil Petkov, Ali and Jason Wu, Olivia Barbee, and Madison Meyers have become lifelong friends after an excellent summer of science, travel, and adventure. I have cherished the steadfast support and patience of my family as I pursued this dream. Thank you to Mom, Dad, Kyle, Kelsey, Korbin, Lisa, Anna, Benjamin, Bob and Holly Anderson (and Moose and Bailey), and Robina Scaife for all your love and understanding. iv I’m so grateful for the GG graduate students, who have shown me that there’s more to life than work. I owe my sanity to Jessica Zaiss for getting me hooked on long distance running, Emily First (i.e. the best officemate ever) for interisland adventures, and Sammie Jacob, my science sister, travel buddy, and dear friend. I would be nothing without the Hawai‘i Ultimate League Association and my Wahine Ultimate ‘ohana, with whom I shared many sunny days and starry nights hucking discs and winning boat races. Thriving friendships have kept me going on the toughest days, and I am thankful to have Cole Hanson, Rick Provost, Laura Gerson, Mark Brown, Sadie Neuman, Heidi Breid, Chelsea Habberstad, Brock Norwood, Paul Tlougan, Kelsey Johnson, Cassie Bly, and Mimi Danicic in my life. I am especially grateful to Kelly Farhni, who taught me to be like a duck (calm on the surface but paddling like crazy underneath), Jim Woodbury, who said if you’re going to hit a wall you might as well hit it running, and Devon Green, who gave me perspective to remind me that I’m only human. I am indebted to Ruth Oliver for inspiring my scientific mind, and of course, to Steve Allard, who taught me that he/she who sees the most rocks wins. And finally, my sincerest gratitude to my love, Isaac Ishihara, for all the patience and unending support. Thanks for climbing mountains with me. This work was supported financially by the National Science Foundation, East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes, National Research Foundation of Singapore, Fred M. Bullard Endowed Graduate Fellowship, and the Harold T. Stearns Fellowship. v vi ABSTRACT Olivine compositions and zoning patterns have been widely used to investigate the evolution of magmas from their source to the Earth’s surface. Modeling the formation of compositional zoning in olivine crystals has been used to retrieve timescales of magma residence, mixing, and transit. This dissertation is composed of three projects that apply diffusion chronometry principles to investigate how zoned olivine phenocrysts record magmatic processes at Hawaiian volcanoes. Olivine phenocrysts from Kīlauea, the most active and thoroughly studied volcano in Hawai‘i, are used to develop a better understanding of how Hawaiian olivine crystals record magmatic histories. This work begins by examining how crustal processes such as magma mixing and diffusive re- equilibration can modify olivine compositions inherited from growth in parental magmas (Chapter 2). Diffusive re-equilibration of Fe-Mg, Mn, and Ni in olivine crystals overprints the chemical relationships inherited during growth, which strongly impacts interpretations about mantle processes and source components. These issues are further complicated by sectioning effects, where small (400 µm along the c-axis) olivine crystals are more susceptible to overprinting compared to large (800 µm) crystals. Olivine compositions and zoning patterns are then used to show that magmas during Kīlauea’s explosive Keanakāko‘i Tephra period (1500-1823 C.E.) were mixed and stored in crustal reservoirs for weeks to months prior to eruption (Chapter 3). Fe-Mg disequilibrium between olivine rims and their surrounding glasses show that a late-stage mixing event likely occurred hours to days prior to eruption, but the exact timescale is difficult to quantify using Fe-Mg and Ni diffusion. Lithium, a rapidly diffusing trace element in olivine, is modeled for the first time in a natural volcanic system to quantify this late- vii stage, short-duration mixing event (Chapter 4). Lithium zoning in olivine records both growth and diffusion processes that are affected by charge balancing requirements with growth zoning of P. Timescales from modeling diffuse Li zoning range from a few hours to three weeks, but most record short storage durations of four days or less. These timescales correspond to short storage periods after mixing. Thus, Li probably records the final perturbation of a magmatic system prior to eruption. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION.................................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ iv ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ xv LIST OF EQUATIONS ................................................................................................. xix CHAPTER 1: Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Dissertation Overview .............................................................................................. 1 1.2. Hawaiian Volcanism ................................................................................................ 1 1.3. Kīlauea Volcano ....................................................................................................... 3 1.4. Eruptive Cycles ........................................................................................................ 5 1.5. Method Overview ..................................................................................................... 7 1.5.1. Diffusion Equations ........................................................................................... 8 1.5.2. Diffusivity Equations ....................................................................................... 10 1.5.3. Experimentally determined diffusivities ......................................................... 11 1.5.4. Diffusion chronometry in volcanic systems .................................................... 12 1.6. Structure of the Dissertation ................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 2: Nickel variability in Hawaiian olivine: Evaluating the relative contributions from mantle and crustal processes .............................................................. 16 2.1. Abstract .................................................................................................................. 16 2.2. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 17 2.3. Samples and Methods............................................................................................