Igneous differentiation
processes by which magmas undergo bulk chemical change during the partial melting process, cooling, emplacement, or eruption
In geology, igneous differentiation, or magmatic differentiation, is an umbrella term for the various processes by which magmas undergo bulk chemical change during the partial melting process, cooling, emplacement, or eruption. The sequence of (usually increasingly silicic) magmas produced by igneous differentiation is known as a magma series.
Definitions
Primary melts
When a rock melts to form a liquid, the liquid is known as a primary melt. Primary melts have not undergone any differentiation and represent the starting composition of a magma. In nature, primary melts are rarely seen. Some leucosomes of migmatites are examples of primary melts. Primary melts derived from the mantle are especially important and are known as primitive melts or primitive magmas. By finding the primitive magma composition of a magma series, it is possible to model the composition of the rock from which a melt was formed, which is important because we have little direct evidence of the Earth's mantle.
Parental melts
Where it is impossible to find the primitive or primary magma composition, it is often useful to attempt to identify a parental melt. A parental melt is a magma composition from which the observed range of magma chemistries has been derived by the processes of igneous differentiation.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Igneous differentiation” as processes by which magmas undergo bulk chemical change during the partial melting process, cooling, emplacement, or eruption. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q498203. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Igneous differentiation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.