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    "headline": "Superheated magma from La Palma delayed crystals for 8 hours, which may explain towering lava fountains",
    "description": "Superheated magma from La Palma's 2021 eruption delayed crystal growth for over eight hours in lab tests, which may help explain towering lava fountains.",
    "datePublished": "2026-11-13T23:40:00+00:00",
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    "keywords": "Cumbre Vieja, Diamond Light Source, La Palma, University of Manchester",
    "articleBody": "Magma heated beyond the point where crystals can survive held off crystallizing for more than eight hours in lab tests, compared with about 20 minutes for magma that was not superheated, and that delay may be what lets some volcanoes throw up towering fountains of lava. The finding comes from an international team led by the University of Manchester, which recreated the 2021 Tajogaite eruption on La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands. The study, published in Nature Communications, tackles an old puzzle in volcano science: why do volcanoes fed by similar magma sometimes ooze lava gently and other times spray it high into the air? Why La Palma matters here The Tajogaite eruption ran from September 19 to December 13, 2021. At 85 days it was the longest known eruption on La Palma, beating a 1585 eruption by one day, and its lava reached the sea and built new land along the coast. It was also the island’s first eruption since Teneguía in 1971, which gave volcanologists a rare fresh sample from a well-watched event. What the models showed The team fed the lab-measured delays into computer models of magma rising through the crust. Magma that put off crystallizing climbed quickly and stayed runny, the kind of behavior that can drive lava fountains. Magma that crystallized early grew more viscous, rose slowly and let gas leak away, favoring calmer, effusive flows. What superheating does Magma is a mix of melt, crystals and gas. As it rises, crystals normally start to grow on tiny existing crystal “seeds.” The more crystals form, the thicker and stickier the magma becomes. Superheating, a state where magma sits above the temperature at which its crystals are stable, dissolves those seeds and evens out the melt’s internal structure, so new crystals struggle to get started. Lead author Barbara Bonechi, a research associate at Manchester, said the team could finally watch that process directly. “Until now, we did not fully understand the dynamics of crystal growth for magmas that received an injection of superheat just before ascent,” she said. How the team tested it The researchers took rock from the Tajogaite eruption, which may have been partly superheated before and during its rise, and remelted it under high temperature and pressure. At Diamond Light Source, the UK’s synchrotron facility, they used an X-ray-transparent pressure vessel and X-ray microtomography to see crystals form in real time. Longer runs in Prague extended the observation window. The gap they measured is large. Eight hours against 20 minutes means superheated magma stayed crystal-free at least 24 times longer than the untreated melt in these experiments. Badiyaa has looked at other fiery-rock science, including a seafloor “yellow brick road” made of cracked volcanic rock and a study suggesting Earth may have made its own oceans from molten rock. Limits and what comes next The results come from one volcano’s magma, recreated in the lab, and the authors stop short of saying superheating explains every lava fountain. Co-author Margherita Polacci, a senior lecturer in volcanology at Manchester, said hazard models usually focus on magma chemistry, gas content and pressure changes. “This work suggests that pre-eruptive thermal history and crystallisation kinetics may also play an important role in controlling magma ascent and eruptive behaviour, with implications for volcanic hazard assessment,” she said. The team says thermal history could become one more signal monitoring crews read when they forecast how an eruption will behave. Further reading Wikipedia: 2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption Bonechi et al., Superheating in mafic magmas controls clinopyroxene nucleation delay and magma ascent dynamics (Nature Communications) Image: Benjamín Núñez González, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
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