Petrology and mineralogy of pumice from the Iheya North Knoll, Okinawa Trough: implications for the differentiation of crystal-poor and volatile-rich melts in the magma chamber

The Iheya North Knoll is a submarine hill that is covered with pumice in the Okinawa Trough. The petrology and mineralogy of the crystal-poor rhyolitic pumice collected from two sampling sites (T3 and T6) on the knoll were analysed in this article. The T6 pumice, which contains some mafic minerals (e.g., clinopyroxene, orthopyroxene), is slightly more crystal-rich (<5 vol.%) than the T3 pumice (<2 vol.%). However, both types of pumice are high-potassium rhyolites with similar Nd isotopic ratios and rare earth element patterns, as well as similar glass compositions, which indicates that they may fall along a line of descent of comagmatic evolution. The T6 pumice contains some xenomorphic clinopyroxenes that are not in equilibrium with their whole-rock composition, which suggests that the crystal-poor melt was extracted from a more mafic source. The T3 pumice features a flow structure, and its matrix glass records higher Cl concentrations and a lower total mass than the T6 pumice, which implies that the T3 melt has a higher volatile content and lower viscosity. The distinct petrographic characteristics but similar matrix glass compositions of the T3 and T6 pumice suggest that the extracted melt was physically differentiated during ascent, with the more crystal-poor and volatile-rich T3 melt reaching a higher lever in the magma chamber. Meanwhile, simulation calculations indicate that the melt experienced near-adiabatic decompression-driven chemical differentiation, which led to the growth of sodium-rich plagioclase but not quartz in the pumice.