Unraveling textural and chemical features in volcanic rocks through advanced image processing: a case study from the 2019 paroxysmal eruptions of Stromboli

Abstract

The Quantitative X-Ray Map Analyzer software, a new tool for image processing, has been tested on intertwined pumices and scoriae emitted during the two paroxysmal eruptions of Stromboli of 2019, whose textural and compositional heterogeneities reflect the coexistence of low porphyritic shoshonitic-basalts and high porphyritic shoshonites. The procedure applied was designed to quantitatively document the complex variations in texture and composition of these products, allowing substantial time reduction of analytical and data processing. The procedure utilizes Principal Components Analysis and supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification for multivariate statistical data handling of an array of X-ray elemental maps acquired at the millimeter scale in thin sections. This technique permits the production of high-contrast colored images, which allow the classification of rock constituents, extrapolating the associated modal abundances and imaging chemical variations within the glass. Results highlight the close interconnection at the microscale of two types of magma in the erupted products, manifested in each processed image by the presence of contiguous areas preserving textural bulk properties typical of the pumice or scoria. The proportion of the two magmas feeding the eruptions is not simply represented by the proportions of scoria and pumice in individual clasts, as both scoria and pumice contain glass with the composition of shoshonitic-basalts and shoshonites. This method also allows the recognition of important discordances between the textural and chemical features of the two fractions involved, as well as discernment of the compositions of the two interacting magmas at the microscopic scale, even in those micro domains showing evidence of intense interaction processes.