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[1] Harzburgites and plagioclase-peridotites from the Othris Peridotite Massif in Central Greece preserve microstructural and petrological evidence for interaction with a melt which became saturated in orthopyroxene while migrating by km-scale diffuse porous flow through the thermal boundary layer (TBL) and the base of the thermal lithosphere. The melt precipitated orthopyroxene, and eventually also plagioclase and clinopyroxene within the peridotites. Major and trace element geochemistry suggests that the melt was a depleted melt, i.e., a melt fraction from the melting column underneath a spreading centre produced by shallow melting of refractory peridotites. We see no evidence for the presence of boninitic melts. We argue that the melts in Othris migrated by diffuse porous flow as they crystallised orthopyroxenes and were therefore inherently unable to create their own high-permeability melt channels. We propose that depleted melt fractions can remain isolated from deeper melt fractions, possibly already aggregated into a MORB-like magma, because they migrate by different mechanisms through the TBL and the lithosphere.

[1] Experimental studies have shown that olivine aggregates with !4% melt are significantly weaker than melt-free aggregates. However, questions remain as to the importance of melt weakening in nature. In several studies, melt weakening has been invoked to explain patterns of mantle flow in the Oman Ophiolite. In this paper, we reinvestigate evidence for melt weakening in the Hilti mantle section using structural and microstructural methods. The average olivine grain size increases with depth below the crust-mantle boundary. This is related to a change from equigranular-to-porphyroclastic microstructures at shallow levels to coarse porphyroclastic microstructures at depth. A strong foliation and high degree of recrystallization in the upper part of the mantle section are interpreted as the strong imprint of localized deformation at stresses of $4-10 MPa. Lattice orientation data show that the high-strain peridotites have recorded top-to-the-west shear; reversed shear senses were found deeper in the section. Since there is petrographic evidence for melt in the high-strain zone, strain localization was probably caused by a melt-related weakening mechanism. High melt contents required for melt weakening suggest that melt accumulated just below the crust-mantle boundary. We conclude that melt weakening is probably related to enhancement of grain boundary rather than intragranular deformation processes. Effective viscosities <2 Â 10 16 PaÁs may locally exist in the uppermost mantle beneath ridges if melt weakening occurs. Although our results agree with those of previous studies in the Hilti Massif, we conclude that both the previously published active flow model and a ridge compression model can account for them.

The Dzereg Basin is an actively evolving intracontinental basin in the Altai region of western Mongolia. The basin is sandwiched between two transpressional ranges, which occur at the termination zones of two regional-scale dextral strike-slip fault systems. The basin contains distinct Upper Mesozoic and Cenozoic stratigraphic sequences that are separated by an angular unconformity, which represents a regionally correlative peneplanation surface. Mesozoic strata are characterized by northwest and south±southeast-derived thick clast-supported conglomerates ( Jurassic) overlain by fine-grained lacustrine and alluvial deposits containing few fluvial channels (Cretaceous). Cenozoic deposits consist of dominantly alluvial fan and fluvial sediments shed from adjacent mountain ranges during the Oligocene±Holocene. The basin is still receiving sediment today, but is actively deforming and closing. Outwardly propagating thrust faults bound the ranges, whereas within the basin, active folding and thrusting occurs within two marginal deforming belts. Consequently, active fan deposition has shifted towards the basin centre with time, and previously deposited sediment has been uplifted, eroded and redeposited, leading to complex facies architecture. The geometry of folds and faults within the basin and the distribution of Mesozoic sediments suggest that the basin formed as a series of extensional half-grabens in the Jurassic±Cretaceous which have been transpressionally reactivated by normal fault inversion in the Tertiary. Other clastic basins in the region may therefore also be inherited Mesozoic depocentres. The Dzereg Basin is a world class laboratory for studying competing processes of uplift, deformation, erosion, sedimentation and depocentre migration in an actively forming intracontinental transpressional basin.

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An unusual late Neoproterozoic (c. 572 Ma) ophiolite is exposed in the Dariv Range (western Mongolia), which contains intermediate to acidic lavas and sheeted dykes, and an igneous layered complex consisting of gabbro-norites, websterites, orthopyroxenites and dunites underlain by serpentinized mantle harzburgites. Based on the compositions of the crustal units and the crystallization sequences in the mafic and ultramafic cumulates we conclude that the entire oceanic crust, including the cumulates, was made from arc magmas with boninitic characteristics. The Dariv rocks bear a strong resemblance to rocks recovered from the modern Izu-Bonin-Mariana fore-arc, a fragment of proto-arc oceanic basement, and we propose that the Dariv Ophiolite originated in a similar tectonic setting. A metamorphic complex consisting of amphibolite-to granulite-facies metasedimentary and meta-igneous rocks was thrust over the ophiolite. This metamorphic complex probably represents a Cambrian arc. Thrusting started before 514.7 AE 7.6 Ma as constrained by new sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe U-Pb zircon analyses from a syn-to post-tectonic diorite. The Dariv Ophiolite is a type-example of a proto-arc ophiolite, a special class of supra-subduction zone ophiolites.

The Mongolian Altai is a Late Cenozoic intraplate strike-slip deformation belt which formed as a distant strain response to the Indo-Eurasian collision over 2000 km to the south. We report results from 5 weeks of detailed fieldwork carried out during summer 2000 in northwestern Mongolia investigating the crustal architecture of the Altai at latitude 48°N. The region can be divided into discrete Cenozoic structural domains each dominated by a major dextral strike-slip fault system or range-bounding thrust fault. Gentle bends along the major strike-slip faults are marked by transpressional uplifts including asymmetric thrust ridges, restraining bends, and triangular thrust-bounded massifs. These transpressional uplifts (Tsambagarav Massif, Altun Huhey Uul, Sair Uul, Hoh Serhiyn Nuruu, Omno Hayrhan Uula, Mengildyk Nuruu) comprise the highest mountains in the Mongolian Altai and are structural and metamorphic culminations exposing polydeformed greenschist-amphibolite grade basement recording at least two phases of Palaeozoic ductile deformation overprinted by Cenozoic brittle structures. Cenozoic thrust faults with the greatest amounts of displacement bound the W and SW sides of ranges throughout the region and consistently verge WSW. Each major range is essentially a NE-tilted block and this is reflected by asymmetric internal drainage patterns. Many faults are considered active because they deform surficial deposits, form prominent scarps, and define range fronts with low sinuosity where active alluvial fan deposition takes place. Reactivation of the prevailing NW-striking, NE-dipping Palaeozoic basement anisotropy is a regionally important control on the orientation and kinematics of Cenozoic faults. At first order, the Altai is spatially partitioned into a low-angle thrust belt that overthrusts the Junggar Basin on the Chinese side and a high-angle SW-vergent dextral transpressional belt on the Mongolian side. The mechanically rigid Hangay craton and Junggar basement block which bound the Altai on either side have played a major role in focusing Late Cenozoic deformation along their boundaries and within the Altai. The geometric relationship between rigid block boundaries, Palaeozoic basement structural anisotropy, and the dominantly NE SHmax (derived from India’s continued NE indentation) has dictated the kinematics of Late Cenozoic deformation in the Altai, Gobi Altai, and Sayan regions.

Macquarie Island (Southern Ocean) is a fragment of Miocene ocean crust and upper mantle formed at a slow-spreading ridge system, uplifted and currently exposed above sea-level. The crustal rocks on the island have unusually enriched compositions and the strong signature of an enriched source requires low overall degrees of melt depletion in the underlying mantle. Peridotites on the island, however, are highly refractory harzburgites that can be modeled as residues of420^25% of near-fractional melting from which all the free clinopyroxene was melted out. The peridotites have some of the highest spinel Cr-numbers (0•40^0•49) and lowest orthopyroxenecore Al 2 O 3 concentrations (2•7^3•0 wt %) reported so far for oceanic peridotites. The peridotites were subsequently modified by melt^rock reactions underneath the Miocene ridge system. The refractory character of the peridotites is inconsistent with the slow-spreading ridge setting as well as with the enriched character of the overlying crust, and must indicate a previous depletion event; the peridotites are not the source residue of the overlying ocean crust on Macquarie Island. Osmium isotopic compositions of peridotite samples are very unradiogenic (187 Os/ 188 Os ¼ 0•1194^0•1229) compared with normal abyssal peridotites and indicate a long-lived rhenium depletion. Proterozoic rhenium-depletion ages indicate that these rocks have preserved a memory of an old mantle melting event. We argue that the Macquarie Island harzburgites are samples from an anciently depleted refractory mantle reservoir that may be globally important, but that is generally overlooked because of its sterility; that is, its inability to produce basalts. This reservoir may preserve key information about the history of the Earth' s mantle as a whole.