Reply to Brenna and Cronin (2015), Mantle heterogeneity controls on small-volume basaltic volcanism: REPLY

Abstract

We thank Brenna and Cronin (2015) for their Comment on our recent publication (McGee et al., 2015), and welcome the opportunity to further elaborate on the clear correlation between erupted volumes and chemical composition of primitive volcanic products in the Auckland Volcanic Field (AVF). After postulating that P2O5 content can be used as a proxy for La and rare earth element (REE) ratios in AVF basalts, Brenna and Cronin claim that the relationships we observe between erupted volumes and chemical signature of AVF basalts are, in fact, nonexistent when looking at the P2O5 content of the most MgO-rich sample of 41 out of the 53 eruptions in the AVF. Here we show that there are three significant flaws in their argument, and furthermore suggest that the whole rock data they recommend we use, if in fact scrutinized correctly, actually validates our original observations.