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Understanding Reaction Rims in Magmas

Reaction rims form around partially resorbed crystals as they react with the surrounding magma during fractional crystallization. As temperature decreases and water concentration increases, clinopyroxene may react with the melt to form hornblende reaction rims. Similarly, a quartz xenocryst incorporated into a silica-undersaturated basaltic melt reacted to form a rim of clinopyroxene crystals. Plagioclase mantling of alkali feldspar grains, known as rapakivi texture, can originate from magma mixing or decompression during intrusion. Some plagioclases also contain internal concentric zones crowded with inclusions that reveal a history of reactions with the surrounding melt.

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9 views2 pages

Understanding Reaction Rims in Magmas

Reaction rims form around partially resorbed crystals as they react with the surrounding magma during fractional crystallization. As temperature decreases and water concentration increases, clinopyroxene may react with the melt to form hornblende reaction rims. Similarly, a quartz xenocryst incorporated into a silica-undersaturated basaltic melt reacted to form a rim of clinopyroxene crystals. Plagioclase mantling of alkali feldspar grains, known as rapakivi texture, can originate from magma mixing or decompression during intrusion. Some plagioclases also contain internal concentric zones crowded with inclusions that reveal a history of reactions with the surrounding melt.

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fahmi fadilla
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7.3.

2 Reaction Rims
Incomplete discontinuous reaction relations in fractionating
magmas are recorded in a reaction rim that surrounds
an anhedral, partially resorbed grain of another mineral. Such reaction rims develop during
fractionation
in the model Mg2SiO4-SiO2 system (Section 5.3.2)
and are found in many magmatic rocks where rim and
core phases are solid solutions. In Plate II, decreasing
T and increasing water concentration in the crystallizing
magma destabilized the clinopyroxene so that it reacted
with the melt to form hornblende reaction rims.
If magmatic conditions had changed more slowly so
that the diffusion-controlled reaction relation could
have been completed, achieving a state of equilibrium,
all of the pyroxene would have been consumed in the
reaction. In Figure 5.32, reduction in water pressure in
the volcanic system promoted a reaction between the
unstable resorbing hornblende and the enclosing melt,
creating a reaction rim of stable pyroxene, plagioclase,
and Fe-Ti oxides; the developing rim curtailed further
resorption in the time available. In Figure 6.20, a
xenocryst of quartz incorporated into basalt magma
reacted with the silica-undersaturated melt, forming
a reaction rim of stable clinopyroxene crystals. Their
needlelike habit probably reflects rapid crystallization
as the hot melt was quenched around the cool xenocryst.
Rim crystals nucleated heterogeneously on the
unstable core crystal.
Observations of volcanic rocks and complementary
experiments suggest that rapakivi texture, in which an
alkali feldspar grain is rimmed by plagioclase (Figure
7.18), can originate during mixing of magmas (Stimac
and Wark, 1992). Alternatively, Nekvasil (1991) proposes
that magma decompression during intrusion can
create plagioclase-mantled alkali feldspars.
Another history of reactions with enclosing melt is
revealed in some plagioclases (Figure 7.19), which contain
an internal concentric zone crowded with irregular
inclusions of minute mineral grains like those constituting
the microcrystalline matrix.

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