Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Shared Roots: A Geochemical Investigation Of Basaltic Andesites To Understand Magmatic Cogenesis At The Middle Sister And South Sister Volcanoes, Central Oregon, Sean Francis Halstead

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The Middle Sister and South Sister volcanoes, near Bend, Oregon, are overlapping, active Cascade Arc stratovolcanoes which share a complex, contemporaneous eruptive history. This history is characterized by an extreme compositional diversity of lavas erupted in alternating phases of high activity from one neighboring volcano to the other, with both vents producing material ranging from basaltic andesite to rhyolite. This system is understood to be predominantly fed by basaltic andesites fractionated from partial mantle melts within the lower crust, but magma compositions are additionally impacted by mixing, assimilation, and crustal contamination while in transit to the surface. Thus, the subterranean …