The role of amphibole in the evolution of arc magmas and crust: the case from the Jurassic Bonanza arc section, Vancouver Island, Canada

The Jurassic Bonanza arc, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, represents an exhumed island arc crustal section of broadly diorite composition. We studied bodies of mafic and ultramafic cumulates within deeper levels of the arc to constrain the conditions and fractionation pathways leading from high-Mg basalt to andesite and dacite. Major element trends coupled with textural information show the intercumulus crystallization of amphibole, as large oikocrysts enclosing olivine in primitive cumulates controls the compositions of liquids until the onset of plagioclase crystallization. This process is cryptic, occurring only in the plutonic section, and explains the paucity of amphibole in mafic arc volcanics and the change in the Dy/Yb ratios in many arc suites with differentiation. The correlation of octahedral Al in hornblende with pressure in liquidus experiments on high-Mg basalts is applied as an empirical barometer to hornblendes from the Bonanza arc. It shows that crystallization took place at 470–880 MPa in H₂O-saturated primitive basaltic magmas. There are no magmatic equivalents to bulk continental crust in the Bonanza arc; no amount of delamination of ultramafic cumulates will shift the bulk arc composition to the high-Mg# andesite composition of bulk continental crust. Garnet removal from wet magmas appears to be the key factor in producing continental crust, requiring high pressures and thick crust. Because oceanic island arcs are built on thinner crust, the long-term process generating the bulk continental crust is the accretion of island arcs to continental margins with attendant tectonic thickening.