9503222 Garcia A three-year plan is proposed for the collection and study of rocks from the southwest rift zone of Mauna Loa volcano, Hawaii. Many rocks from this area are picrites and it is possible that the deep eruptions are a result of density filtering of the magmas due to pooling of dense magmas deep within the conduit system. The alternative is that the lavas exposed on the proposed slump surface are older than subaerial lavas and therefore show a temporal variation of chemistry of lavas. These lavas are particularly interesting because they are the most Mg-rich lavas ever found on Hawaii or other similar island and these glasses can tell us much about how the mantle melts and how the melts are transported to the surface. ***
