A preliminary quantification of volatiles from the Afro-Arabian LIP

Large Igneous Provinces have often been implicated in mass and minor extinction events, driven in part by short term sulphur-mode cooling and long term carbon-mode warming. The Afro-Arabian LIP is a compositionally zoned and diachronously emplaced continental flood basalt, with peak ages of 31‑29 Ma in the north of the Ethiopian highlands and 26‑22 Ma to the south. This protracted and pulsed eruption is contrary to LIP models wherein the bulk of flood volcanism occurs in a 1 Myr timeframe, and is perhaps linked to cooling and faunal turnover at the Oligo-Miocene boundary, for which volatile delivery plays a role. We present the first volatile dataset for the Afro-Arabian LIP from c. 100 olivine- and pyroxene- hosted melt inclusions spanning temporal and compositional provinces within the flood basalts and overlying shield volcanoes. We use a combination of SIMS and EPMA to quantify H₂O, CO₂, F, Cl, S, Li and B, and compare our data to volatile studies on Quaternary rift volcanism in East Africa in order to investigate spatial and temporal heterogeneity of volatile delivery. We further compare our dataset to other LIPs, in order to make first order observations on outgassing, magma flux and differing climatic effects.