Francesca Forni, Marcus Phua, Olivier Bernard, Maria Giuditta Fellin, Jeffrey Oalmann, Colin Maden, Hamdi Rifai, Caroline Bouvet de Maisonneuve
Understanding the conditions and timescales of storage and remobilization of magma bodies in the upper crust is key to interpreting the signals of potential reawakening at active volcanoes. In this paper, we provide the first volcanological and petrochronological characterization of the Singkut caldera, a young volcanic system located in northern Sumatra (Indonesia), in close proximity to Medan, one of the country's most popoluous cities. Singkut formed at ∼44 ka during a VEI 6 explosive eruption that deposited at least ∼26 km3 of tephra (dense rock equivalent, DRE). The cataclysmic eruption was preceded by >200 ky of mostly effusive pre-caldera activity and followed by effusive to mildly explosive post-caldera activity. The lavas and pumices have high crystallinity (up to 62% crystals) with andesitic to dacitic bulk-rock composition and rhyolitic glass. Mineral textures and matrix glass compositions indicate resorption of quartz, plagioclase and zircon. Zircon crystallization ages show a complete overlap with the eruption ages in pre-caldera lavas, while a time gap in zircon crystallization (>50 ky) is identified in the caldera-forming tuff and post-caldera lavas. Ti-in-zircon thermometry shows that the Singkut magma body experienced a temperature increase starting approximately upon eruption of the pre-caldera lavas (∼254 ka). Such thermal perturbation determined progressive melting of mineral phases in the cumulate crystal mush, caused the resorption of the youngest zircon domains before the caldera-forming eruption, and hampered zircon crystallization between the caldera-forming eruption and the effusion of the post-caldera lavas (∼16 ka). Our data demonstrate how cumulate melting processes played a key role in leading the volcanic system towards a caldera-forming eruption and controlled the transitions in eruptive style between the effusive phases and the explosive climactic eruption. © 2023 The Authors
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra “Ardito Desio”, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, 20133, Italy; Earth Observatory of Singapore and Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore; Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université de Paris Cité, Paris Cedex 0, Paris, 75238, France; Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology, ETH Zurich, Zürich, 8092, Switzerland; Centre for Ore Deposits and Earth Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 79, Hobart, 7001, TAS, Australia; Department of Physics, Universitas Negeri Padang, Padang, 25131, Indonesia
