3-D Dynamics of the Ferrar Magmatic Mush Column, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctic

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This award supports studies of the Ferrar magma system in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. Its goal is to understand magma transport and differentiation, the primary processes by which continental crust and volcanic magmas form, as well as a key way that planets and meteorite parent bodies differentiate. The old model envisions straws and chambers of molten liquid that pond and differentiate through a rain of crystals. This view has been challenged by the Dry Valleys, where deeply incised valleys produced by tens of millions of years of erosion crosscut an enormous magma body. Deep recesses of the magma body expose stacked, crystal-laden sills that indicate much more complex magmatic processing than previously thought. This project is deciphering the complex processes recorded in these sills.The broader impacts of this work include undergraduate and graduate student education, contributions to museum exhibits, lectures for the broader public, and dissemination of the results in a book.