Relationship between magmatic processes in the plumbing system of Mt. Etna and the dynamic of the eastern flank: inferences from the petrologic study of the products erupted from 1995 to 2005

Abstract

The Team 4 of RU 11 collected, analyzed and interpreted a set of volcanological and petrologic data (petrography, mineral chemistry, major, trace elements, Sr and Nd isotopic compositions and melt inclusions in olivine), concerning the activity and the products erupted by the four summit craters (South-East, North-East, Bocca Nuova and Voragine) of Mt. Etna from 1995 to 2001 and integrated them with petrologic data already available in literature for the flank eruptions occurring from 2001 to 2005.The results of this activity allowed: i) to identify the compositional features of the magmas stored within the shallow (< 5 km b.s.l.) and deep portion (> 5 km b.s.l.) of Mt. Etna plumbing system; ii) to identify and quantify the main magmatic processes (e.g. fractional crystallization, mixing) there occurring; iii) to better constrain the geometry (shape and depth) of Mt. Etna shallow storage zones; iv) to correlate the time related sequence of compositional data with other datasets; v) to infer if a relationship exists between the magmatic processes in the plumbing system of Mt. Etna and the dynamic of the eastern flank.