Volcanic and geochemical evolution of the Ethiopian Rift in East Africa

埃塞俄比亚裂谷暴露了地球上一些最活跃和潜在危险但知之甚少的火山。鉴于我们对软流圈中的熔体产生和地壳结构有着极其详细的地球物理了解，该裂谷是了解活跃大陆裂谷中岩浆活动、近地表侵入和火山活动的时空变化的理想场所。裂谷暴露了裂谷发展的不同阶段，导致火山记录中广泛的地球化学多样性，但这些变化仍有待于在时间和空间上进行定量评估。该项目的主要目的是充分整合我们对整个裂谷岩石学和地球化学变化的理解，以测试有关地幔柱、亏损地幔和地壳同化作用以及裂谷自大约3000万年前开始以来的裂谷分割的假设。重点将放在埃塞俄比亚北方裂谷，从埃克塞特到多芬火山。这项研究将结合联合收割机，详细的实地考察，遥感，地质年代学，高精度的地球化学和同位素技术，以解决如何主要裂谷火山演变。对埃塞俄比亚裂谷的这项研究将为其他火山提供深入了解，在这些火山中，构造过程对火山活动的速率和特征至关重要。

The Ethiopian rift exposes some of the most active and potentially hazardous but poorly understood volcanoes on Earth. Given our exceptionally detailed geophysical understanding of melt production in the asthenosphere and of crustal structure, the rift is an ideal place to understand spatial and temporal variations in magmatism, near-surface intrusion and volcanism in an active continental rift. The rift exposes different stages of rift development, resulting in wide geochemical diversity in the volcanic record, but these variations remain to be quantitatively assessed in time and space. The principal aim of this project is to fully integrate our understanding of petrological and geochemical variability across the rift to test hypotheses concerning the role of mantle plumes, depleted mantle and crustal assimilation and rift segmentation since rifting began roughly 30 million years ago. A focus will be in the northern Ethiopian rift from Aluto to Dofen volcanoes. The study will combine detailed fieldwork, remote sensing, geochronology, and high precision geochemical and isotopic techniques to address how major rift volcanoes evolve. This study of the Ethiopian rift will provide insights into other volcanoes where tectonic processes are critical to the rates and characteristics of volcanism.