Mantle processes during ocean formation：Petrologic records in peridotites from the Alpine－Apennine ophiolites

Mantle peridotites were early exposed at the sea-floor of the Jurassic Tethys derived from the subcontinental mantle of the Europe-Adria system. During continental rifting and oceanic spreading, these lithospheric peri-dotites were percolated via diffuse reactive porous flowby melt fractions produced by near-fractional melting of the upwelling asthenosphere. Ascending melts inter-acted with the lower lithosphere, dissolving pyroxenes and precipitating olivine, and crystallized at shallower levels in the mantle column causing melt impregnation.Subsequent focused porous flow formed replacive dunitechannels, cutting the impregnated oeridotites, which were conduits for upward migration of MORB-type liq-uids. Melt migration produced depletionlrefertilization and significant heating of the percolatedlimpregnated mantle, i.e the thermochemical erosion of the litho-sphere. Impregnated and thermally modified lithos-pheric mantle was cooled by conductive heat loss dur-ing progressive lithosphere thinning and was intrudeaby MORB magmas, which formed Mg-rich and Fe-richgabbroic dykes and bodies. Alpine-Apennine ophiolitic peridotites record the deep-seated migration of melts which changed their compositions and dynamics during the rift evolution. The thermochemical erosion of the lithospheric mantle by the ascending asthenospheric melts, which induces significant compositional and rhe-ological changes in the lower lithosphere, is a major process in the evolution of the continent-ocean transi-tion towards a slow spreading oceanic system.     

A sensitivity study of the role of continental location and area on Paleozoic climate

The seasonal variation of the surface temperature is calculated for various idealized paleogeographic conditions with a 1.5-dimensional (1.5-D) coupled climate-sea ice model. The sensitivity of the annual and summer polar temperatures to the meridional oceanic heat transport and to the parameterizations adopted for the snow and sea ice albedos is examined in connection with the location and size of a polar global super-continent. It is shown that the high latitude summer temperatures remain below the freezing point in all numerical simulations with a polar super-continent, thus suggesting the potential role played by a large polar continental mass in the initiation of glaciations. These results are in agreement with a previous 1.5-D energy balance model (EBM) study but in conflict with two-dimensional (2-D) EBMs suggesting above-freezing high latitude summer temperatures in the case of a polar-centered super-continent. It is also found that the amount of seasonality is strongly dependent on the details of the surface albedo feedback parameterizations and could explain the various model diverging results.If a simplified temperature dependence of the silicate weathering rate controlling the long-term carbon cycle is included, the atmospheric CO₂ level is significantly increased in the case of a polar-centered continent but summer temperatures still remain below freezing.