Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

This study will investigate why modern and ancient volcanoes are located along faults and how the composition of magma is changed as it flows through the faults, which provide pathways for magma to flow through the Earth's crust. Part 1 of the project uses the volcanic centres of the Aegean Sea over the past 25 million years to analyse the variability of magma evolution: this region is chosen because of the rapid changes in style of faulting that have taken place above individual magma sources in the mantle. Furthermore, chronology and geochemistry of the lavas are well understood from previous work. Part 2 of the work attempts to relate new findings from seismic tomography of the mantle to large-scale patterns of volcanism. Results from this work are then applied in Part 3 to the much more difficult rocks of the old Appalachian mountain belt, to understand how old volcanoes formed and conversely what were the patterns of faulting at the time that they formed. This research aims to relate two of the most important geological processes on the planet: volcanism and faulting. It has practical applications to the exploration for many mineral resources and to the assessment of volcanic risk.