Eruption of ultralow-viscosity basanite magma at Cumbre Vieja, La Palma, Canary Islands
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Abstract
The viscosity of magma exerts control on all aspects of its migration through the crust to
eruption. This was particularly true for the 2021 eruption of Cumbre Vieja (La Palma), which
produced exceptionally fast and fluid lava at high discharge rates. We have performed
concentric cylinder experiments to determine the effective viscosities of the Cumbre Vieja
magma, while accounting for its chemistry, crystallinity, and temperature. Here we show that
this event produced a nepheline-normative basanite with the lowest viscosity of historical
basaltic eruptions, exhibiting values of less than 10 to about 160 Pa s within eruption tem peratures of ~1200 to ~1150 °C. The magma’s low viscosity was responsible for many eruptive
phenomena that lead to particularly impactful events, including high-Reynolds number tur bulent flow and supercritical states. Increases in viscosity due to crystallization-induced melt
differentiation were subdued in this eruption, due in part to subtle degrees of silica enrich ment in alkaline magma.
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Nature Communications, 13, Springer Nature, London, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30905-4