This session will bring together igneous petrologists with a wide range of interests to evaluate the state-of-the-art in understanding how magma chambers work. Key questions concern the processes involved in crystallization and the drivers for magmatic differentiation, and how these are affected by shape and size of the chamber (dykes, sills or large plutons) and magma composition (granitic, alkaline and mafic-ultramafic). Contributions on all aspects of magma chamber processes are invited, including: the relative effects of in situ crystallization versus crystal settling; the origin of layering; the role of thermal and compositional convection; the effects of compaction and post-cumulus melt migration within the cumulate pile; the role of fluids; the formation of chilled margins and compositional reversals along the intrusive contacts of plutonic bodies; the thermal evolution of magma chambers; interaction between resident and inflowing magma during chamber replenishment events; the origin of different compositional profiles in dykes and sills; and the effects of silicate-silicate liquid immiscibility. We welcome contributions from those working on field, textural, mineralogical, geochemical, isotopic, experimental and numerical studies of plutons and volcanoes to provide new ideas on how magma chambers operate and develop.

Invited speakers: