On 25 June 2026, Associate Professor Jie Chen of the School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has published a research article in Nature Communications titled “Magma convection favors ephemeral melt-rich bodies within mushy reservoirs.” Chen is the first and corresponding author. The study is co-authored by Lydéric France of Université de Lorraine and Jean-Arthur Olive of École Normale Supérieure.
Geophysical observations increasingly suggest that magma reservoirs are dominated by crystal-rich mush containing only small pockets of eruptible melt. Using two-dimensional thermal models of the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise at 9°N, the study shows that magma convection has little effect on the reservoir’s overall thermal structure but greatly accelerates heat transfer from melt-rich bodies to the surrounding mush. As a result, their eruptible lifetime can fall below two years—about two orders of magnitude shorter than predicted by models without magma convection.
The findings indicate that melt-rich bodies may be highly transient and that geophysical images of magma systems capture short-lived configurations rather than stable, long-lived magma chambers. Because eruptions at the East Pacific Rise 9°N recur on a timescale of roughly 20 years, the magmatic system likely requires persistent or frequent magma recharge. Convection may also promote melt mixing and compositional homogenization in the upper gabbroic crust.
This work extends Chen’s earlier studies published in PNAS (2023) and JGR-SE (2022), forming a continuing series on the thermal evolution of magma reservoirs.
Figure 1. Magma-mush system at fast spreading East Pacific Rise 9°N (A) and model setup (B).
Figure 2. Magma convection substantially shortens the lifetime of melt-rich bodies within a mushy reservoir. Red curves show simulations with convection; black curves show simulations without convection.
Model simulations without magma convection (left) and with convection (right). Upper panels are temperature fields and lower panels are crystal fraction fields.
• Chen et al. (2026), Nature Communications
• Chen et al. (2022), JGR: Solid Earth
Contributed by the research group of Associate Professor Jie Chen
