Why does the mantle melt?

Under static conditions, all temperatures will be below the rock melting temperature. If not, melting and melt escape will extract heat and raise the local solidus, until the solidus is above the local temperature.

Why the mantle melts: decompression melting

Convective rise of deep, hot mantle rock causes the rising rocks to cool adiabatically at ~2C/kbar, and to intersect the rock solidus line which has a typical slope of ~6C/kbar. Melting begins, absorbing heat as melting progresses. Melt eventually escapes.

Why the mantle melts: flux melting

In subduction zones, aqueous fluids and water-bearing magmas escape from the subducting oceanic lithosphere. These rise into the overlying mantle wedge and act as a flux that lowers the melting temperature of the mantle wedge.

Why the crust melts: heating or flux melting

Under static conditions the crust should not melt either.

Heating the crust: Addition of heat to the lower crust raises the geotherm until it crosses the dry solidus.

Wetting the crust: Aqueous fluids lower the lower crust solidus to below the local geotherm. Fluids may come from dehydration of hydrous minerals in crustal rock (e.g., micas or amphiboles), or from crystallizing basalts in the deep crust.

Phenocrysts, xenocrysts, xenoliths

Dike Plutons all solidify. If crystal nucleation is initially low, phenocrysts can grow from the liquid. All plutons interact with surrounding rocks and so can have xenocrysts, xenoliths, and narrow dike or sill extensions.

Chilled margins

Grain size variations caused by differential cooling rates at different distances from the pluton margin

Flow foliation and differentiation

Differential flow can cause crystals and xenoliths to become parallel and to migrate away from the walls.

Flow foliation in large plutons

Marginal foliations developed within a pluton as a result of differential flow along the contact. From Lahee (1961), Field Geology. McGraw Hill. New York.

Pluton rise: stopeing

Thermal and mechanical stresses associated with pluton emplacement can fracture shallow, brittle rocks. Dense detached blocks can sink into the pluton depths. With long exposure, xenoliths can partially melt, become disaggregated, and loose their identity, thus contaminating the magma. Exposed piles of xenoliths on pluton floors are rarely found.

Stopeing and xenoliths, Wichita Mtns., Oklahoma

Stopeing of diorite xenoliths into a granodiorite magma. Field trip led by members of the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Geology Dept. Kurt Hollocher, 1975.

Pluton rise: ballooning

Ballooning involves pluton swelling with displacement of ductile country rock. Also illustrated here is the filling of a pluton by dikes. It appears that, for many plutons, dike filling is the dominant magma emplacement mechanism. Mafic dike swarms are common, and felsic dike swarms beneath some felsic plutons can be found.

Pluton rise: melting and assimilation

Hot magma may interact directly with the wall rock. Melted wall rock can mix with the rest of the pluton.

The question becomes how much of the pluton was from below, and how much was from adjacent rock?

Pluton rise: diapirism

Diapirism involves density-driven rise of buoyant magma through denser country rock. Salt domes are perhaps the best example of diapirism. Magmas are generally not viscous enough to be emplaced by this mechanism; it is mechanically easier for the magma to penetrate upward as a thin dike rather than as a large blob.

Normal zoning of crystals

Normal zoning involves continuous composition change from a hightemperature composition core to a low-temperature composition rim. This example is of plagioclase.

Convection-controlled crystal dissolution and zoning

Zoned plagioclase with internal unconformities.

Augite with rounded, partly resorbed core.

Crystal growth and convection into different P, T, or composition regions, can result in multiple episodes of growth and dissolution.

Mineral growth and dissolution in magmas

Dissolution (resorption) of phenocrysts or xenocrysts Resorbed quartz phenocryst in a dacite porphyry. Euhedral phenocrysts of plagioclase and olivine in a basalt.

Regular growth

Other mineral reaction relationships in magmas

Dehydration of hydrous minerals to an anhydrous pseudomorphic assemblage.
Quartz xenocryst rimmed by augite in an olivine basalt.

Quartz xenocryst rimmed by hornblende in a syenite porphyry. Augite rimmed and partly replaced by brown hornblende in a gabbro.

Overgrowths of one mineral on another due to a peritectic reaction or disequilibrium.