SilicH2O: a graphical user interface for processing silicate glass Raman spectra and quantifying H2O

Abstract

H₂O contents of magmas strongly impact the explosivity of volcanic eruptions, as well as their rheological properties and crystallisation behaviour. Accurate analyses of H₂O in magmatic liquids are therefore vital for our understanding of the dynamics of magmatic processes and eruptions. Raman spectroscopy provides an accessible, affordable and high spatial resolution technique for estimating H₂O contents of magmas that have been quenched to a glass during eruption. However, calculating H₂O concentrations from Raman spectra involves manual data processing and results are therefore sensitive to the specific treatment used. SilicH2O is an open-source software program that uniformises and streamlines this process by providing an interactive graphical user-interface. It can be used to: (a) process Raman spectra of silicate glasses, (b) remove any unwanted peaks through interpolation and unmixing, (c) set up H₂O calibrations with reference materials and (d) quantify H₂O contents of unknown samples.