EARTH In the literature: contested

How long do crustal magma reservoirs persist as crystal mush?

In plain words

Under many volcanoes magma is stored for long times as a crystal mush, mostly crystals with a little melt between them. How long it stays there and at what temperature is debated.

Precise statement

Determine the thermal history of upper-crustal magma reservoirs: the fraction of their lifetime ($10^{4}\ \text{to}\ 10^{6}\,\mathrm{yr}$) spent as eruptible magma (crystal fraction below about 0.5) versus near-solidus cold storage, using crystal diffusion chronometry, zircon geochronology and thermal models. An answer is a reconciled storage temperature-time history for well-studied systems.

What would settle it

Diffusion and U-Th zircon chronometry from the same crystals reconciled with thermal-mechanical models of incremental reservoir growth.

See also