View article

The Laguna del Maule Volcanic Field (LdM) is host to both the foremost example of post-glacial rhyolitic volcanism in the southern Andes and rapid, ongoing crustal deformation. The flare-up of high-silica eruptions was coeval with deglaciation at 24 ka. Rhyolite and rhyodacite domes and coulees totaling 6.5 km3 form a 20 km ring around the central lake basin. This spatial and temporal concentration of rhyolite is unprecedented in the history of the volcanic field. Colinear major and trace element variation suggests these lavas share a common evolutionary history (Hildreth et al., 2010). Moreover, geodetic observations (InSAR & GPS) have identified rapid inflation centered in the western side of the rhyolite dome ring at a rate of 17 cm/year for five years, which has accelerated to 30 cm/yr since April 2012. The best fit to the geodetic data is an expanding magma body located at 5 km depth (Fournier et al., 2010; Le …