Magma chambers emplaced in carbonate substrate: petrogenesis of skarn and cumulate rocks and implication on CO2-degassing in volcanic areas

Abstract

Crystal-rich lithic clasts occurring in volcanic deposits are key tools to understand processes of storage, cooling, and fractionation of magmas in pre-eruptive volcanic systems. These clasts, indeed, represent snapshots of the magma-chamber/host-rock interface before eruptions and provide information on crystallization, differentiation, and degrees of interaction between magma and wall-rocks. In this study, with the aim to shed light on magma-carbonate interaction and CO2 emission in volcanic areas, we focused on the petrology of cumulate and skarn rocks by using as case study a suite of mafic and calcite-bearing lithic clasts from the Colli Albani Volcanic District. By means of phase relations, bulk rock chemistry, phase compositions, and stable isotope data we have recognized different types of cumulates and skarns. Cumulates containing either clinopyroxene±olivine associated with Cr-bearing spinel or glass+phlogopite have been divided in primitive and differentiated, respectively. Primitive cumulates originate at the interface between a relatively primitive magma and carbonate-bearing rocks and show evidences of olivine instability (i.e. heteradcumulate texture) due to carbonate assimilation. Differentiated cumulates, characterized by Ca-rich olivines, phlogopite, and glass containing calcite, form from a differentiated magma in a system open to CaO-contamination. Skarns has been divided in exoskarns, characterized by xenomorphic texture and abundant calcite, and endoskarns, characterized by hypidiomorphic texture, Ca-Tschermak-rich mineral phases, and interstitial glass. Exoskarns formed by means of solid state reactions in a dolostone protolith whereas endoskarns crystallized at subliquidus temperature from a silicate melt that experienced exoskarns assimilation. Our study evidences that magma-carbonate interaction can not be considered a one step process exhausting just after the formation of skarn shells. Magma and carbonate rocks, when in contact, continuously interact leading to the formation of exoskarns, endoskarns, cumulates (primitive and differentiated ones), and differentiated melts. Finally, by means of oxygen and carbon isotope compositions of calcite in equilibrium with skarns, we demonstrate that carbonate assimilation represents a source of massive CO2 degassing mechanism due to the consumption of calcite and removing of CO2 during the decarbonation process.