Articles | Volume 37, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/ejm-37-385-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/ejm-37-385-2025
Research article
 | 
04 Jul 2025
Research article |  | 04 Jul 2025

Vesiculation dynamics – Part 1: Decompression-induced H2O vesicle formation in the Lower Laacher See phonolitic melt

Patricia Louisa Marks and Marcus Nowak

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Vesiculation dynamics – Part 2: Decompression-induced H2O vesicle growth, onset, and progression of coalescence
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Cited articles

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Airy, G. B.: On the Diffraction of an Object-glass with Circular Aperture, Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 5, 283–291, 1834. 
Allabar, A. and Nowak, M.: Message in a bottle: Spontaneous phase separation of hydrous Vesuvius melt even at low decompression rates, Earth Planet. Sc. Lett., 501, 192–201, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2018.08.047, 2018. 
Allabar, A. and Nowak, M.: High spatial resolution analysis of H2O in silicate glass using attenuated total reflection FTIR spectroscopy coupled with a focal plane array detector, Chem. Geol., 556, 119833, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2020.119833, 2020. 
Allabar, A., Dobson, K. J., Bauer, C. C., and Nowak, M.: Vesicle shrinkage in hydrous phonolitic melt during cooling, Contrib. Mineral. Petr., 175, 21, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00410-020-1658-3, 2020a. 
Short summary
We provide new insights into the release of H2O from the phonolitic melt of the Laacher See volcano. Decompression experiments conducted at superliquidus conditions revealed uniformly dispersed vesicles throughout the samples, with extremely high vesicle numbers regardless of the decompression rate. These findings enhance our understanding of volcanic eruptions and might suggest that rapid volatile release due to off-critical spinodal decomposition increases explosive volcanic activity.
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