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Experimental formation of Pele’s hairs and tears at 1200°C under atmospheric pressure from natural alkali olivine basalt

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Abstract

The formation of Pele’s hairs and tears (PH and PT) is generally associated with fluid-charged rapid explosive basaltic volcanism on Earth’s surface. Their formation and relationship with eruption types have led to a sudden increase in theoretical and experimental studies in recent years. Unlike previous experimental setups, the present study successfully formed these volcanic structures using a simple experimental design. The viscosity of basaltic melt was lowered to <100 Pa·s at 1200°C under 1 atmospheric pressure using a novel cylinder-in-cylinder graphite sample chamber for the in-situ fluxing of excess fluids into the melt system. The abundance of vesicles in the basaltic melt observed in mesoscopic to sub-microscopic scales suggests the presence of fluid phase in excess, its decoupling and degassing. The dissolved gas species in the experimentally generated melt are confirmed by the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic analyses. The PH and PT formed during the present study compare morphologically very well to their known natural and experimental counterparts, and are found to be compositionally similar. They display a small range of chemical variations and exhibit a good chemical homogeneity similar to their natural analogues.

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Acknowledgements

This study is based on an M.Sc. Dissertation project of MZ. AKS expresses his sincere thanks to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India, for providing him with financial assistance in the form of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellowship [SPM-09/001(0328)/2020-EMR-I] and also, acknowledges the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, for the INSPIRE Fellowship (IF170168). Dr Kamlesh Pandey, NCEMP, the University of Allahabad is thanked for the FTIR runs. We are grateful to the Editor Professor Somnath Dasgupta and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions, which helped to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Nehru Science Centre, Faculty of Science, University of Allahabad, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Mohammad Zahbi, Anuj Kumar Singh, Jayanta Kumar Pati, Shivanshu Dwivedi & Anukriti Anand

  2. National Centre of Experimental Mineralogy and Petrology (NCEMP), University of Allahabad, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Jayanta Kumar Pati & Mrigank Mauli Dwivedi

Authors
  1. Mohammad Zahbi
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  2. Anuj Kumar Singh
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  3. Jayanta Kumar Pati
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Contributions

JKP conceived the problem and designed the experiment. The experiments and analyses were carried out by MZ, AKS, AA and MMD. JKP: Conceptualization, sample collection, supervision, writing, interpretation, and validation. MZ and AKS: Experimental investigation, laboratory analysis, data compilation, writing, interpretation, and validation. MMD, SD, and AA: Experimental investigation and laboratory analysis.

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Correspondence to Anuj Kumar Singh.

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Communicated by Somnath Dasgupta

Corresponding editor: Somnath Dasgupta

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Zahbi, M., Singh, A.K., Pati, J.K. et al. Experimental formation of Pele’s hairs and tears at 1200°C under atmospheric pressure from natural alkali olivine basalt. J Earth Syst Sci 132, 47 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-023-02061-w

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