Mount Meager massif are covered with their eruptive products and serve as the surface expressions of intrusions. As a result, they provide a unique opportunity to study the relationships between magma chambers and their lavas. The mafic (rich in magnesium and iron), intermediate (between mafic and felsic) and felsic (rich in feldspar and quartz) volcanic rocks of the massif were erupted from at least eight volcanic vents. The Bridge River Vent is a relatively young volcanic crater that formed during an eruption about 2,400 years ago. This eruption ranged in character from explosive to effusive and involved lava dome extrusion, pyroclastic flows, lahars
Granite melts which are less dense than mafic rocks and thus tend to ascend toward the surface. In contrast, mafic rocks, either basalts or gabbros, once metamorphosed at eclogite facies, tend to sink into the mantle beneath the Moho. Granitoids have crystallized from felsic magmas that have compositions at or near a eutectic point (or a temperature minimum on a cotectic curve). Magmas are composed of melts and minerals in variable abundances. Traditionally, magmatic minerals are crystallized from the melts that have completely separated from their parental rocks and thus are highly evolved because of igneous differentiation. If a granite has