Timescales for pluton growth, magma-chamber formation and super-eruptions

Generation of silicic magmas leads to emplacement of granite plutons, huge explosive volcanic eruptions and physical and chemical zoning of continental and arc crust^1-7. Whereas timescales for silicic magma generation in the deep and middle crust are prolonged⁸, magma transfer into the upper crust followed by eruption is episodic and can be rapid^9-12. Ages of inherited zircons and sanidines from four Miocene ignimbrites in the Central Andes indicate a gap of 4.6 Myr between initiation of pluton emplacement and onset of super-eruptions, with a 1-Myr cyclicity. We show that inherited zircons and sanidine crystals were stored at temperatures <470 °C in these plutons before incorporation in ignimbrite magmas. Our observations can be explained by silicic melt segregation in a middle-crustal hot zone with episodic melt ascent from an unstable layer at the top of the zone with a timescale governed by the rheology of the upper crust. After thermal incubation of growing plutons, large upper-crustal magma chambers can form in a few thousand years or less by dike transport from the hot-zone melt layer. Instability and disruption of earlier plutonic rock occurred in a few decades or less just before or during super-eruptions.