Magmatic and Volcanic Processes in Large Igneous Provinces

Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) represent some of the most prodigious volcanic events in Earth history, characterised by the rapid emplacement of vast volumes of predominantly basaltic magma onto the surface or into the crust. These events are typically linked to deep‐mantle plumes that ascend as buoyant, thermochemical anomalies, melting at the base of the lithosphere and generating flood basalts, sills and dykes. The emplacement of LIPs can occur over timescales of less than a million years yet produce volumes exceeding a million cubic kilometres of lava. Such rates of eruption can inject large quantities of volcanic gases—chiefly sulphur and carbon dioxide—into the atmosphere, with potential climate perturbations, ocean acidification and biotic crises. Modern studies integrate high‐precision geochronology, geochemical tracers and geophysical imaging to resolve the plumbing systems, the timing and tempo of eruptions, and the architecture of magma reservoirs at depth. Advances in understanding the spatial and temporal evolution of LIPs have refined models of plume head versus plume tail dynamics, melt flux variations and interactions with overlying lithosphere, illuminating their role in continental breakup and global environmental change.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent work on a South Atlantic hotspot has revealed that mantle plumes can bifurcate into discrete upper‐mantle conduits, or plumelets, leading to long‐lived geochemical zonation along a volcanic track that extends back over 100 million years. Isotope data demonstrate that these conduit branches sample different mantle sources and evolve during the plume head-to-tail transition. In the high-latitude Siberian Traps, U–Pb zircon geochronology has synchronised felsic and mafic magmatism across a region of several hundred thousand square kilometres, showing that the main eruptive pulse, including intrusive complexes, occurred within a single million-year interval and coincided with end-Permian environmental upheaval. Studies of the Karoo LIP have employed comprehensive trace‐element datasets to distinguish Nb-depleted and Nb-undepleted flood basalts in northern and southern subprovinces, revealing bilateral geochemical asymmetry attributable to tapping of contrasting plume and upper-mantle reservoirs.

Magmatic and Volcanic Processes in Large Igneous Provinces publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in magmatic and volcanic processes in large igneous provinces across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Large Igneous Province (LIP): A region of exceptionally voluminous magmatism, typically emplacing >0.1 million km3 of igneous rock in a geologically short time.

Mantle plume: A buoyant upwelling of hot, solid mantle originating near the core–mantle boundary, responsible for generating extensive magmatism at the surface.

Flood basalt: High-volume, low-viscosity basaltic lava flows that spread laterally over large areas, characteristic of LIP eruptions.

Geochemical zonation: Spatial variation in magma composition along a volcanic track or within an eruptive province, indicating heterogeneous mantle sources or conduit segregation.

Effusion rate: The volume of lava erupted per unit time, critical for assessing volcanic gas release and environmental impact.

Dyke: A tabular intrusion of magma that cuts across pre-existing rock layers, allowing magma to ascend towards the surface.

U–Pb geochronology: A radiometric dating method using uranium-lead decay in zircon crystals to determine the age of magmatic events with high precision.

References

1. Evidence for compositionally distinct upper mantle plumelets since the early history of the Tristan-Gough hotspot. Nature Communications (2023).
2. The main pulse of the Siberian Traps expanded in size and composition. Scientific Reports (2019).
3. Bilateral geochemical asymmetry in the Karoo large igneous province. Scientific Reports (2018).
4. Recurring volcanic winters during the latest Cretaceous: Sulfur and fluorine budgets of Deccan Traps lavas. Science Advances (2023).
5. The 2018-ongoing Mayotte submarine eruption: Magma migration imaged by petrological monitoring. Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2021).