The Mariana forearc is a unique setting on Earth where serpentinite mud volcanoes exhume clasts originating from depths of 15 km and more from the forearc mantle. These peridotite clasts are variably serpentinized by interaction with slab derived fluid, and provide a record of forearc mantle dynamics and changes in geochemistry with depth. During International Oceanic Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 366, we recovered serpentinized ultramafic clasts contained within serpentinite muds of three different mud volcanoes located at increasing distance from the Mariana trench and at increasing depth to the slab/mantle interface: Yinazao (distance to the trench: 55 km / depth to the slab/mantle interface: 13 km), Fantangisña (62 km / 14 km) and Asùt Tesoru (72 km / 18 km). Four different types of ultramafic clasts were recovered: blue serpentinites, lizarditeserpentinites, antigorite/lizardite-and antigorite-serpentinites. Lizardite-serpentinites are primarily composed of orange serpentine, forming mesh and bastite textures. Raman and microprobe analyses revealed that these textures contain a mixture of Fe-rich brucite (XMg~0.84) and lizardite/chrysotile. Antigorite/lizardite-and antigorite-serpentinites record the progressive recrystallization of mesh and bastite textures to antigorite, magnetite and pure Fe-poor brucite (XMg~0.92). Oxygen isotope compositions of clasts and pore fluids showed that the transition from lizardite to antigorite is due to the increase in temperature from 200°C to about 400°C within the forearc area above the slab/mantle interface. Lizardite-, antigorite/lizardite-and antigorite-serpentinites displayed U-shaped chondrite normalized Rare Earth Element (REE) patterns and are characterized by high fluid mobile element concentrations (Cs, Li, Sr, As, Sb, B, Li) relative to abyssal peridotites and/or primitive mantle. The recrystallization of lizardite to antigorite is accompanied by a decrease in Cs, Li and Sr, and an increase in As and Sb concentrations in the bulk clasts, whereas B concentrations are relatively constant. Some clasts are overprinted by blue serpentine, often in association with sulfides. Most of these blue serpentinites were recovered at Yinazao and the uppermost units of Fantangisña and Asùt Tesoru suggesting alteration in the shallower portions of the forearc, possibly during exhumation of the clasts. This episode of alteration resulted in a flattening of REE spectra and an increase of Zn concentrations in serpentinites. Otherwise, no systematic changes of ultramafic clasts chemistry or mineralogy were observed with increasing depth to the slab. The samples document previously undescribed prograde metamorphic events in the shallow portions of the Mariana subduction zone, consistent with a continuous burial of the serpentinized forearc mantle during subduction. Similar processes, induced by the interaction with fluids released from the downgoing slab, likely occur in subduction zones worldwide. At greater depth, breakdown of brucite and antigorite will result in the massive...
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The occurrence of mantle-derived peridotite xenoliths in phonolitic melts is a rare phenomenon, and is commonly ascribed to a mantle origin of the phonolite. The alternative possibility, that xenoliths are transported into evolving phonolite melts by mafic magmas, has received little attention. A unique tephriphonolite lava with phonolitic groundmass composition, from the active Cumbre Vieja volcano of La Palma (Canary Islands), allows to test these models. The lava contains abundant inclusions that represent the island’s major xenolith types: kaersutite-dominated cumulates, gabbros from the lower oceanic crust, and peridotites from the mantle. Our petrological investigations indicate that the tephriphonolite magma contained 3–4 wt% H2O and was stored in the lower crust at around 250–350 MPa and 900–950°C, at oxidized conditions (∆NNO of 2–3). The peridotite xenoliths are mantled by complex polyphase selvages, with adjacent up to 1.6 mm wide zonations where olivine compositions change from Fo78-86 at the selvage contact to Fo89-91 inside the xenoliths. We carried out diffusion modelling for Fe-Mg exchange and found that the peridotites had contact with intermediate to evolved alkaline melts over decades to centuries. This timescale is comparable to that inferred for basanite-hosted peridotite xenoliths from Cumbre Vieja. The following model is proposed: differentiation of evolved melts occurs in a magma accumulation zone in the lowermost oceanic crust beneath La Palma. The evolving melts receive periodic recharge by mantle-derived mafic magmas at intervals on the order of decades to a few centuries, comparable to historic eruption recurrences (80 years on average). Some of these recharge pulses carry mantle peridotite fragments that become deposited in the accumulation zone. Thus, these xenoliths do not reflect formation of the evolved melts in the mantle. Final ascent of the tephriphonolite was triggered by magma recharge some weeks before its eruption, resulting in entrainment and thorough mingling of a mixed xenolith population (cumulates, oceanic crust gabbros, peridotites). We infer that formation of phonolites in the lower crust beneath oceanic island volcanoes, and subsequent eruption, requires a balance between rates and volumes of magma recharge pulses and of eruptive events.
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