Origin of the troodos and other ophiolites: A reply to moores

Advocates of the hypothesis of mid-oceanic ridge origin for ophiolites endeavored to show similarities between ophiolites and mid-oceanic ridges as evidence for their hypothesis. Some of the similarities claimed to exist appear to be true. However, this does not prove their hypothesis, because analogous similarities exist between ophiolites and some island arcs as well. Such advocates claim that rocks of the Troodos ophiolitic complex were subjected to such intense metasomatic changes that my hypothesis of island-arc origin for Troodos based on the bulk chemical analyses of rocks is not justified. However, a detailed examination of compositional variation in Troodos volcanic rocks has revealed that, though some components (e.g., K) were strongly mobile during secondary processes, other components were not, and the presently observed compositional variation resulted mainly from crystallization differentiation. Their assumption of large-scale silica metasomatism for Troodos cannot explain the compositional features of rocks and is contradictory to the hypothesis of mid-oceanic ridge origin, because such metasomatism does not appear to take place in mid-oceanic ridges.