Magmathe hot stuff
Magma is the volcanologist's raw material, the
molten material that is ultimatelv erupted at the
surface in lava flows or pvroclastic eruption
columns. Magma is not svnonymous with lava.
Magma is an elusive term. difficult to define
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suecinctly, but it is best regarded as fresh. mostly
molten rock, still vitalized with the voltiles that it
acquired in its source regin.
Many changes afiect molten rock during its
transformation from subterranean magma to
surface eTusion. Three components, or phases,
are usually present in magma. First, a viscous
silicate melt: second. a variable proportion of
crvstals: and third. a voladle or gas phase. Each of
5.1 The melt ------------------------
This is the most complex component. Some of the
physics of magmas is still uncertainit is
impossible after all to get into a magma chamber
with experimental instruments. Molten silicate
rock is physically different from the liquid water
that results when ice is melted. Pur water
consists only of simple molecules of H20, and
therefore ices melts (and freezes) at atmospheric
pressure at a single temperature: a temperature
that is so sharply defined that it forms the starting
point of the Celsius temperature scale: 0C. A
molten magma, by contrast, is chemically com-
plex. consisting of silicate molecules in which a
these phases influences the way in which the
magma erupts at the surface. When subjected to
subtly different eruption mechanisms, a single
magma may give rise to startlingly different
eruption producs. There is a world of ditference .
betvveen obsidian; massy rhyolitic glass that
shatters at a blow into razor-sharp splinters. and
pumice; rock so light and frothy that it floats on
water. Both, however. may be derived from the
same magma, and both may be erupted from a
single volcano at the same time. Obsidian is
erupted quietly in sluggish lava flows, whereas
pumice is formed when expansin of gas within
the magma causes it to foam into a consistency
resembling expanded polvstyrene.
wide range of elementsis combined. This com-
plexity has two consequences for volcanologv:
the melt does not consist of free molecules. but is
polymerized, and it does not have a single, clear-
cut freezing point.
Polymerization describes the way that mole-
cules cluster to form larger complexes by
repeated linking of the same molecular groups,
retaining an underlying Chemical identity. It is a
common phenomenonat one time it was even
thought that water molecuies might polymerize.
An everyday example of a polymer is polyethyl-
ene, comDOsed of CH,=CH. molecules linked