This article caught my eye, and I checked out the study report (jargon alert), as well as INGV’s excellent post.
Basically, the scientists were able to image more clearly what sort of a magma system underlies a well-known and longstanding geothermal field in Tuscany, central Italy.
To their surprise, apparently, they found a large — about 5,000 km3 — magma reservoir.
Don’t panic.
- That’s slightly smaller than estimates of Long Valley’s reservoir size and only a third of Yellowstone’s.
- According to the study by Lupi et al., the Tuscany magma reservoir is mostly solid. Their estimate, as I understand it, of a roughly 20% melt fraction is similar to Yellowstone’s — far below the percentage that multiple researchers estimate is needed to make any volcano’s melt eruptible.
Also, I did not see in the study any details about how that melt, such as it is, might be arranged. It very well could be spread out in little pockets surrounded by vast quantities of frozen (crystalized) magma.
- Of course there is lots of magma under Italy. The tectonic situation there is amazing!
- The boffins say in their study that this area has had very few eruptions, all things considered. This is puzzling; they suggest that it might have something to do with this magma’s chemistry.
- They also note that this could be a situation where a pluton is forming from the top down, which is really cool. Plutons are supersized magma bodies that form in Earth’s crust and freeze into rock instead of erupting. From all my reading I understand that this is the fate of most magmatic intrusions into the crust, large or small — very few of them will ever reach the surface.
INGV sums up the practical news value of the study in their post: “…The research, published in Communications Earth & Environment, opens new perspectives for the energy transition thanks to the possibilities of using geothermal heat and the availability of critical metals.”
So it’s a win for H. sapiens. But here are some puppies, anyway —
Don’t Panic is a new blog feature, written by this layperson whenever I see news that might scare the bejeesis out of us laypeople, to provide whatever context and information about the news topic that I have picked up while researching my posts and books. It is not expert opinion or an official source of information, though I will try to provide links to that information in each post.
Featured image: Figure 4 from the study by Lupi et al., CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Flight To Wonder 