Geochemical stratigraphy of the Huronian continental volcanics at Thessalon,Ontario: contributions of two-stage crustal fusion

The 1500 m thick sequence of Huronian continental volcanics at Thessalon, Ontario is subdivided into 4 volcanic cycles, each of which includes abundant early mafic end-members, central intermediate flows, and late rhyolite units. Major and trace element concentrations are dominated by extensive gabbroic fractionation trends that ultimately produced two types of felsic flows: (1) rhyolites with high light rare earth element (LREE) and relatively low large-ion lithophile element (LILE) concentrations (high-LREE, low-LILE rhyolites), and (2) following late separation of REE-rich accessory phases, rhyolites depleted in LREE (low-LREE, high-LILE rhyolites). Mafic end-members of individual volcanic cycle are progressively less siliceous and less enriched in LILE and LREE with height in the stratigraphic section. Ti/Zr ratios gradually rise from 35 in early mafic flows to stabilize at about 85 in late units, while average SiO₂ contents decrease from 56 to about 50% and Mg# rises from about 48 to 52. -Nd values are consistently negative, indicating variable degrees of pre-fractionation crustal contamination of the end-member magmas during their uprise through the crust. Mixing models are consistent with up to 50% contamination by crustal material of tonalitic hornblende-gneiss composition. A progressive increase in -Nd, from about-5.0 to-0.5 upward in the volcanic succession, reflects a decreasing degree of crustal contamination due to development of insulating layers along margins of the feeder system. Detailed stratigraphic variations suggest that successive magmas batches were intercepted by a progressively fractionating, periodically replenished magma source, giving rise to open-system magmatism. Despite the prevalence of crustal assimilation in the Huronian lavas, (La/Sr)N ratios are too low in least contaminated end-members to be explained by contamination of tholeiitic magmas. The late basalts resemble instead modern island are basalts, and it is suggested that the subcontinental mantle source was enriched by subduction-related processes during crustal formation. Within individual volcanic cycles gabbroic fractionation trends systematically deviate from calculated factors toward compositions characteristic of hornblende-gneiss. Such relations suggest that further crustal contamination of the magmas occurred simultaneous with crystal fractionation. probably within undulating sills at upper crustal levels. Quantitative analysis suggests assimilation/fractional crystallization (A/FC) ratios of about 0.45. As a result of extensive two-stage contamination, rhyolites from the initial volcanic cycle incorporate a total of over 60% of crust.     

Recycling in the Puerto Rican mantle wedge, Greater Antilles Island Arc

Abstract The initial volcanic phase of Cretaceous island arc strata in central Puerto Rico, at the eastern end of the extinct Greater Antilles Arc, comprises a 6‐km thick pile of lava and volcanic breccia (Río Majada Group). Preserved within the sequence is a conspicuous shift in absolute abundances of the more incompatible elements, including Th, Nb, and the light rare earth elements (LREE: La, Ce, Pr and Nd). The compositional shift is marked by a decrease in La/Sm from averages of 2.11 in the lowest third of the pile (Formation A) to 1.48 at the top (Formation C), and by a distinctive flattening of LREE segments of chondrite‐normalized REE patterns. i⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and ?_Nd average about 0.7035 and 8.2, respectively, in early Formation A basalts. These ranges normally overlap samples from later Formations B and C. Isotope compositions of the latter group are more variable, however, and several samples are considerably more radiogenic than Formation A basalts, such that i⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr averages almost 0.7042 while ?_Nd‐values decrease to 7.5 in Formation B and C basalts. Theoretical models of non‐modal melting processes in both amphibole peridotite and spinel lherzolite sources provide insight into the origin of depleted Th, Nb, and LREE abundances in Puerto Rican basalts. Low Nb concentrations less than normal mid‐oceanic ridge basalts in Formation A basalts indicate the wedge was slightly depleted by low‐volume decompression fusion due to induced convection in the back‐arc region prior to entry of the source into the arc melting zone. However, depleted patterns in Formation C basalts cannot be generated by relatively greater degrees of decompression fusion in the back‐arc, because addition of the La‐enriched slab‐derived component to more depleted source material invariably produces elevated rather than decreased La/Sm. Refluxing of Formation A harzburgitic residua is similarly precluded. In contrast, the observed patterns are readily reproduced by multistage melting models involving hybridized sources containing normal Formation A lherzolite source material blended with recycled, unrefluxed harzburgite residua. Successful models require hybrid sources containing large volumes of recycled harzburgite (up to 50%) during generation of Formation C basalts. Slightly elevated radiometric Sr and Nd isotopes in a few flows from Formation C are attributed to partial refluxing of the hybrid sources within the wedge.     

Late Cretaceous rift-related upwelling and melting of the Trindade starting mantle plume head beneath western Brazil

High mantle potential temperatures and local extension, associated with the Late-Cretaceous impact of the Trindade mantle plume, produced substantial widespread and voluminous magmatism around the northern half of the Paraná sedimentary basin. Our previous studies have shown that, above the central and eastern portions of the postulated impact zone where lithosphere extension is minimal, heat conducted by the plume caused large-scale melting of the more fusible parts of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath the margin of the São Francisco craton and the surrounding Brasilía mobile belt. Here we combine geochemical data and field evidence from the Poxoreu Igneous Province, western Brazil to show how more intense lithospheric extension above the western margin of the postulated impact zone permitted greater upwelling and melting of the Trindade plume than further east. Laser ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age determinations indicate that rift-related basaltic magmas of the Poxoreu Igneous Province were emplaced at ? 84 Ma. Our detailed geochemical study of the mafic magmas shows that the parental melts underwent polybaric crystal fractionation within the crust prior to final emplacement. Furthermore, some magmas (quartz-normative) appear to have assimilated upper crust whereas others (nepheline- and hypersthene-normative) appear to have been unaffected by open-system crustal magma chamber processes. Incompatible trace element ratios (e.g. chondrite-normalised La/Nb?=?1) and isotopic ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr?=?0.704 and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd?=?0.51274) of the Hy-normative basalts resemble those of oceanic islands (OIB). We therefore propose that these “OIB-like” magmas were predominantly derived from convecting-mantle-source melts (i.e. Trindade mantle plume). Inverse modelling of rare-earth element (REE) abundances suggests that the initial melts were predominantly generated within the depth range of ?80–100 km, in mantle with a potential temperature of ?1500 °C.     

Alkaline hybrid mafic magmas of the Yampa area,NW Colorado,and their relationship to the Yellowstone mantle plume and lithospheric mantle domains

The Yampa volcanic field (late Miocene) consists of about 70 outcrops of monogenetic cinder cones, lavas, dykes, volcanic necks and hydrovolcanic pyroclastic deposits and is situated in the most northerly part of the Rio Grande rift. Contemporaneous extension in this part of the rift was small, but there is geological and geophysical evidence that, by the late Miocene, the area was underlain by hot asthenosphere convected by the Yellowstone mantle plume. The Yampa rocks are mafic and chemically diverse, including basanites, alkali basalts, potassic trachybasalts, hawaiites and shoshonites. About half the rocks bear the xenocryst suite feldspar, pyroxene, Fe–Ti oxide, amphibole, biotite. There is a tendency for xenocryst-free rocks to be the most mafic, interpreted to indicate that the xenocrysts are cognate, and represent cumulate material from fractional crystallization of the magmas in deep crustal magma chambers. The elemental and isotopic (Nd and Sr) variations can be modelled by mixing variable proportions of partial melts of local lithospheric mantle with an OIB end-member formed by partial melting of asthenosphere. The OIB end-member appears to have the elemental and isotopic composition of typical Northern Hemisphere OIB, in particular the plume-derived basanites of Loihi seamount, Hawaii. The OIB end-member at Yampa is interpreted to have been derived from mantle convected in the Yellowstone mantle plume.     

A Ce/Nd isotope study of crustal contamination processes affecting Palaeocene magmas in Skye,Northwest Scotland

Twelve¹³⁸Ce/¹³⁶Ce isotope determinations, 31 Nd isotope analyses, and 31 REE profiles are presented for Tertiary basic to intermediate igneous rocks from the Isle of Skye, NW Scotland. The aim of this work is to precisely identify the contamination mechanisms of basic magmas emplaced through old crust, and to test the effectiveness of Ce isotope analysis as a petrogenetic tool.Combined Ce/Nd isotope analysis enables the modelling of the light REE profiles of the mantle-derived precursors to contaminated lavas, using different crustal end-members, in order to compare these with the magmatic lineage of uncontaminated Skye lavas. The geochemical data support a contamination mechanism involving a granitic melt, produced either by large degree melting of Scourian granulitefacies acid sheets, or (possibly) by melting of intermediate gneiss out of isotopic equilibrium.Basaltic lavas showing strong isotopic contamination effects yield calculated degrees of crustal contamination by large degree granitic melts of ca. 8 or 9% based on Ce and Nd isotopic data respectively. However, for lavas with liquidus temperatures of over 1250° C, the temperature dependence of the degree of contamination is weak.The combination of this evidence with new and published Pb isotope data suggests that the bulk of crustal contamination of the Skye lavas occurred in sill complexes at distinct levels in the crust, rather than during the actual ascent of magma through the crust in dykes. It is suggested on the basis of published fluid dynamic and field evidence that the assimilation of large degree melts of acid gneiss by turbulently flowing magma is more likely than assimilation of small degree disequilibrium melts from more refractory intermediate gneisses.It is concluded that Ce isotope analysis is a viable and useful adjunct to Nd isotope data in petrogenetic studies of continental igneous rocks emplaced through old basement.     

Elemental fingerprints of isotopic contamination of hebridean Palaeocene mantle-derived magmas by archaean sial

One of the major puzzles presented by the geochemistry of the Palaeocene plateau lavas of Skye and Mull (N.W. Scotland) is that, although a very strong case can be made that the magmas are variably isotopically contaminated by Archaean Lewisian continental crust, little evidence has been gleaned to date from their major- and trace-element compositions to illuminate this hypothetical process. The combined results of published Sr-, Nd- and Pb-isotope studies of these lavas allow the basalts and hawaiites to be divided into three broad groups: essentially uncontaminated; contaminated with granulite-facies Archaean crust; contaminated with amphibolite-facies Archaean crust. Members of each group show distinctive chondrite-normalised incompatible-element patterns. The processes which gave rise to isotopic contamination of these lavas also affected the abundances and ratios of Ba, Rb, Th, K, Sr and light REE in the magmas, whilst having negligible effects on their abundances and ratios of Nb, Ta, P, Zr, Hf, Ti, Y and middle-heavy REE. Because such a wide range of elements were affected by the contamination process, it is postulated that the contaminant was a silicate melt of one or more distinctive crustal rock types, rather than an aqueous or similar fluid causing selective elemental movements from wall rocks into the magmas. As previous experimental and isotopic studies have shown that the Skye and Mull basic magmas were not constrained by cotectic equilibria at the time when they interacted with sial, the compositions of the contaminated lavas have been modelled in terms of simple magma-crust mixtures. Very close approximations to both the abundances and ratios of incompatible elements in the two groups of contaminated basalts may be obtained by adding 15% to 20% of Lewisian leucogneisses to uncontaminated Palaeocene basalt. Nevertheless, major-element constraints suggest that the maximum amount of granitic contaminant which has been added to these magmas lies between 5% and 10%. These estimates may be reconciled by postulating that the contaminants were large-fraction cotectic partial melts of Lewisian leucogneisses, leaving plagioclase residua. A corollary of this hypothesis is that it is necessary to postulate that the magma chambers where the sialic contamination occurred were, in fact, dykes or (more probably) sills. The very large surface-to-volume ratios of such magmas bodies would permit the systematic stripping, by partial melting, of the most-easily-fusible leucogneisses and pegmatites from the Lewisian crust, whilst failing to melt its major rock types. A present-day analogue to this situation may be the extensive sill-like magma bodies detected by geophysical methods within the continental crust beneath the Rio Grande Rift, southwestern U.S.A.     

The isotopic and chemical evolution of Mount St. Helens

Isotopic and major and trace element analysis of nine samples of eruptive products spanning the history of the Mt. St. Helens volcano suggest three different episodes; (1) 40,000–2500 years ago: eruptions of dacite with ε_Nd = +5, ε_Sr = ?10, variable δ¹⁸O,²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb ～ 18.76, Ca/Sr ～ 60, Rb/Ba ～ 0.1, La/Yb ～ 18, (2) 2500-1000 years ago: eruptions of basalt, andesite and dacite with ε_Nd = +4 to +8, ε_Sr = ?7 to ?22, variable δ¹⁸O (thought to represent melting of differing mantle-crust reservoirs), ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb= 18.81?18.87, variable Ca/Sr, Rb/Ba, La/Yb and high Zr, (3) 1000 years ago to present day: eruptions of andesite and dacite with ε_Nd = +6, ε_Sr = ?13, δ¹⁸O～6‰, variable²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb, Ca/Sr ～ 77, Rb/Ba= 0.1, La/Yb ～ 11. None of the products exhibit Eu anomalies and all are LREE enriched. There is a strong correlation between⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and differentiation indices. These data are interpreted in terms of a mantle heat source melting young crust bearing zircon and garnet, but not feldspar, followed by intrusion of this crustal reservoir by mantle-derived magma which caused further crustal melting and contaminated the crustal magma system with mafic components. Since 1000 years ago all the eruptions have been from the same reservoir which has displayed a much more gradual re-equilibration of Pb isotopic compositions than other components suggesting that Pb is being transported via a fluid phase. The Nd and Sr isotopic compositions lie along the mantle array and suggest that the mantle underneath Mt. St. Helens is not as depleted as MORB sources. There is no indication of seawater involvement in the source region.     

Relative elemental mobility during hydrothermal alteration of a basic sill,Isle of Skye,N.W. Scotland

In Sconser quarry, Isle of Skye, a thin Tertiary basic sill is cut by vertical veins which formed fluid conduits in a major meteoric-hydrothermal system. In order to study the relative mobility of different elements during hydrothermal metamorphism, sill material adjacent to a large (6 mm wide) vein was cut into slices and subjected to geochemical and isotopic analysis. Isotopic evidence indicates that the basic magma which formed the sill was contaminated by Lewisian (Archaean) gneisses at depth, while material from Torridonian (Proterozoic) sandstone country rocks was introduced by hydrothermal fluids after crystallisation. The behaviour of the different elements during hydrothermal metamorphism divides them into 4 groups.

1. Large-ion low-charge elements Ba, K, Rb and Cs were strongly leached from the wall rock in the vicinity of the vein.
2. Other elements including Sr and Pb were depleted near the vein, but isotopic evidence indicates addition of some material from the fluids. This two-way nuclide transport forms an exchange process.
3. Many high-field-strength elements including the REE are slightly enriched near the vein, but Nd isotope evidence reveals no addition of material from fluids. These elements must have been relatively enriched by the removal of other elements (mainly Si and Al).
4. Ca and Na were added to the wall rock from fluid. The variable mobility of these elements is explained by the differing ease with which they could be incorporated into a new albite-calcite-chlorite-epidote mineralogy. The constitution of this hydrothermal mineralogy was largely determined by the primary igneous mineralogy, though the composition of hydrothermal fluids had a subordinate influence.

     

Isotopic and geochemical evidence for magma mixing in the petrogenesis of the Coire Uaigneich Granophyre,Isle of Skye,N.W. Scotland

Field relations, petrographic features, major and selected trace element compositions, and Sr- and Pb- isotope characteristics indicate that the Coire Uaigneich Granophyre (CUG) was formed by the mixing of two magmas. One of these, a liquid of high ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio (ca. 0.731) formed by the anatexis of late Precambrian Torridonian sediments, contained relict quartz and zircon. The other liquid was an acid differentiate of basaltic magma and was enriched in incompatible elements such as Zr and Y. The two magmas mixed in the proportions of approximately two parts anatectic melt to one part acid differentiate. Hydrothermal metamorphism had no significant effect on the bulk chemistry of the CUG.     

Bimodal volcanism in northeast Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Greater Antilles Island Arc): Genetic links with Cretaceous subduction of the mid-Atlantic ridge Caribbean spur

Bimodal extrusive volcanic rocks in the northeast Greater Antilles Arc consist of two interlayered suites, including (1) a predominantly basaltic suite, dominated by island arc basalts with small proportions of andesite, and (2) a silicic suite, similar in composition to small volume intrusive veins of oceanic plagiogranite commonly recognized in oceanic crustal sequences. The basaltic suite is geochemically characterized by variable enrichment in the more incompatible elements and negative chondrite-normalized HFSE anomalies. Trace element melting and mixing models indicate the magnitude of the subducted sediment component in Antilles arc basalts is highly variable and decreases dramatically from east to west along the arc. In the Virgin Islands, the sediment component ranges between< 0.5 to  1% in Albian rocks, and between  1 and 2% in succeeding Cenomanian to Campanian strata. In comparison, sediment proportions in central Puerto Rico range between 0.5 to 1.5% in the Albian to 2 to > 4% during the Cenomanian-Campanian interval. The silicic suite, consisting predominantly of rhyolites, is characterized by depleted Al₂O₃ (average < 16%), low Mg-number (molar Mg/Mg + Fe < 0.5), TiO₂ (< 1.0%), and Sr/Y (< 10), oceanic or arc-like Sr, Nd, and Pb isotope signatures, and by the presence of plagioclase. All of these features are consistent with an anatexic origin in gabbroic sources, of both oceanic and arc-related origin, within the sub-arc basement. The abundance of silicic lavas varies widely along the length of the arc platform. In the Virgin Islands on the east, rhyolites comprise up to 80% of Lower Albian strata (112 to 105 Ma), and about 20% in post-Albian strata (105 to 100 Ma). Farther west, in Puerto Rico, more limited proportions (< 20%) of silicic lavas were erupted. The systematic variation of both sediment flux and abundance of crustally derived silicic lavas are consistent with current tectonic models of Caribbean evolution involving approximately perpendicular subduction of the Caribbean spur of the mid-Atlantic Ridge, which was located approximately midway between North and South America until Campanian times. Within this hypothetical setting the centrally positioned Virgin Islands terrain remained approximately fixed above the subducting ridge as the Antilles arc platform swept northeastward into the slot between the Americas. Accordingly, heat flow in the Virgin Islands was elevated throughout the Cretaceous, giving rise to widespread crustal melting, whereas the subducted sediment flux was limited. Conversely, toward the west in central Puerto Rico, which was consistently more remote from the subducting ridge, heat flow was relatively low and produced limited crustal melting, while the sediment flux was comparatively elevated.