Magma mixing as a source for Pinatubo sulphur

Victor Kress ()
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Victor Kress: University of Washington

Nature, 1997, vol. 389, issue 6651, 591-593

Abstract: Abstract On 15 June 1991, a huge plinian eruption at Mount Pinatubo discharged 3.7–5.3 km3of pyroclastic material1, along with a minimum of 17 megatonnes of SO2 gas2,3. This represents the largest stratospheric SO2 cloud ever measured, and the SO2 generated in this eruption is believed to have had a significant effect on global climate2,4 and the ozone layer4 for several years after the event. The source for this massive amount of SO2 aerosols remains controversial. Here I present thermodynamic arguments which suggest that the source of the SO2, along with the trigger for the eruption itself, can be attributed to redox reactions accompanying the injection of a reduced sulphide-saturated basaltic magma into an oxidized sulphate-saturated dacitic melt. The proposed mixing event would drive most sulphur out of both dacitic and basaltic liquids and would drive both anhydrite and iron-rich sulphide liquid outside their stability field, thus purging sulphur from all major non-volatile sulphur-bearing phases in the mixed volume. Similar eruptions are possible any time that an oxidized sulphate-saturated magma interacts with a reduced sulphide-saturated magma, and this mechanism may therefore be relevant to recent volcanic activity at Popocatépetl Volcano in Mexico.

Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1038/39299

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