material is able to rise close to the Earth's surface. In such low-pressure environments, melting of hot mantle can generate very large amounts of magma.
"The idea that flood basalt eruptions generally require melting of mantle under low-pressure conditions is largely based on the trace element compositions of the erupted magmas," explains Dr. Jussi Heinonen, University of Helsinki, the lead author of the recentHe specifies further that the relative amounts of rare earth elements in many flood basalts point to magma formation in the presence of low-pressure mantle minerals.
"These flood basalts made us consider the possibility that melting of exceptionally hot mantle could lead to the formation of high-pressure magmas with trace element features similar to those of low-pressure magmas," adds Ph.D. student Sanni Turunen from the University of Helsinki. "We were thrilled to find out that the simulations supported our hypothesis by predicting total consumption of garnet, a diagnostic mineral of high-pressure conditions, when mantle melting occurred at the high temperatures indicated by the flood basalts," says Dr. Eric Brown, Aarhus University, a co-author of the article and one of the developers of the REEBOX PRO tool.
helsinkiuni Liquid hot magma