Geochemical and Sr–Nd isotopic features of the Zaro volcanic complex: insights on the magmatic processes triggering a small-scale prehistoric eruption at Ischia island (south Italy)

The prehistoric (<7 ka) Zaro eruption at Ischia island (Southern Italy) produced a lava complex overlaying a pyroclastic
deposit. Although being of low energy, the Zaro eruption might have caused casualties among the neolithic population that
inhabited that area of Ischia, and damages to their settlements. A similar eruption at Ischia with its present-day population would turn into a disaster. Therefore, understanding the magmatic processes that triggered the Zaro eruption would
be important for volcanic hazard assessment and risk mitigation, so as to improve a knowledge that can be applied to other
active volcanic areas worldwide. The main Zaro lava body is trachyte and hosts abundant mafc and felsic enclaves. Here all
juvenile facies have been fully characterized from petrographic, geochemical and isotopic viewpoints. The whole dataset
(major and trace element contents; Sr–Nd isotopic composition) leads to rule out a genetic link by fractional crystallization
among the variable facies. Thus, we suggest that the Zaro mafc enclaves could represent a deep-origin mafc magma that
mingled/mixed with the main trachytic one residing in the Ischia shallow magmatic system. The intrusion of such a mafc
magma into a shallow reservoir flled by partly crystallized, evolved magma could have destabilized the magmatic system
presumably acting as a rapid eruption trigger. The resulting processes of convection, mixing and rejuvenation have possibly
played an important role in pre- and syn-eruptive phases also in several eruptions of diferent sizes in the Neapolitan area
and elsewhere in the world.

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