TeMaS is a collaborative effort of the Universities of Mainz, Frankfurt and Heidelberg that coordinates interdisciplinary research on magmatic processes in the broadest sense, from the generation of magma in the Earth’s mantle through its eruption in volcanoes and how that impacts the atmosphere and climate.
It is funded by grants from Rheinland-Pfalz, the University of Frankfurt and Heidelberg University.
Magmatic processes are central to the geosciences, as they constitute the main connection between the deep solid Earth and the surface. They are responsible for the creation of continents on Earth, for the generation of large ore deposits, and for catastrophic volcanic eruptions that directly and indirectly affect the lives of millions of people.
Over the last decade, significant advances have been made in our investigation of magmatic systems, and we now know that we can only understand such systems in an integrative and interdisciplinary manner. They need to be considered at the mantle-to-atmosphere scale and not just by analyzing shallow magma chambers that directly feed volcanoes. It has also been realized that magmatic systems are highly dynamic and are formed by many small pulses of magma, of which less than 10% erupts in volcanoes, with most melt crystallizing within the Earth’s crust during its upward flow. Why that is, and how the dynamics of these complex physical and chemical systems work from the deep mantle to the atmosphere, is largely unknown.
Our goal is to understand how magmatic processes work on vastly different scales and how different environments (subsurface, surface, and atmosphere) are intertwined. This will be achieved by combining unique expertise and multidisciplinary approaches of members of the Departments of the Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at the Universities of Mainz, Frankfurt and Heidelberg.
TeMaS is a consortium of researchers from the Universities in Mainz, Frankfurt and Heidelberg. The main funding comes from the Research Initiative of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate. https://research.uni-mainz.de/top-level-and-high-potential-research-areas-of-jgu/
Because deep carbon is stored for long periods in the lithospheric mantle, rift CO2 flux depends on lithospheric processes that control melt and volatile transport. Data discussed in this paper indicate that advection of the root of thick Archaean lithosphere laterally to the base of the much thinner adjacent Proterozoic lithosphere creates a zone of highly concentrated deep carbon. This mode of deep-carbon extraction may increase CO2 fluxes in some continental rifts, helping to control the production and location of carbonate-rich magmas.
The interaction between deformation of the lithosphere and the chemical evolution of migrating melts is incompletely understood. Here, we describe an approach in which we couple a large amount of precomputed phase diagrams with a lithospheric deformation code that includes a simple diking parameterization. The simulations are shown to give detailed, yet realistic, predictions that compare reasonably well with observations.
In view of the elevated upper-mantle temperatures within the Cape Verde hotspot regime, fracturing induced by magmatic injection is the most likely cause for the observed deep earthquakes.
The source of fluids that are released from subducting slabs is incompletely understood. The team here employs novel experiments to simulate the conditions in the lab and shows that the reaction of sediments from the subduction zone with peridotite is very similar to traces of fluids found in diamonds and kimberlite magmas.