No abstract

Detailed descriptions of the mineralogy, petrography, geochemistry, and physical properties of serpentinized ultramafic rocks dredged from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 45° N support an interpretation of the events which affected these rocks after their original crystallization. Crystallization apparently took place in lopoliths emplaced at the Crust/Upper Mantle interface beneath the axis of the ridge under conditions quiet enough to permit gravity crystal differentiation and layering. The rocks were then fractured without hydration under high hydrostatic pressure, with a feeble directional component, possibly under conditions favoring solid-state recrystallization of interstitial minerals. Hydration (amphibolization) began during the last phases of intimate mechanical deformation and the commencement of rodingitic metasomatism. Further hydration resulted in multiple overlapping periods of serpentinization dependent on varying physical conditions. Hydrating fluids may have been derived both from juvenile waters and from sea water.

Assisted by detailed bathymetric and bottom photographic coverage, a series of closely spaced samples of rock were taken by dredging along a traverse from the center of the Median Valley to the adjacent crest mountains on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The specimens show a gradation from tholeiitic to alkali basalts. Chemical variations, and the alkali content in particular, can be correlated with the depth of extrusion and with the topographic relationship of the volcanoes to the axis of the Median Valley.Although the basalts show considerable evidence of gravity-controlled crystal fractionation, the trends so established are evidently not responsible for alkali enrichment, but appear to be superimposed onto the more fundamental, continuous trend from tholeiitic to alkali basalts.

Results from 27 dredge hauls (75 samples) spaced from 150 km west to 70 km east of the Median Valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at about 45 °N are reported. Basalt is the most common rock type. The basalts have a mean remanent intensity of 92 × 10−4 and a mean susceptibility of 0.9 × 10−4 cgs cm−3. The remanence varies with distance from the axis, samples from the Median Valley (mean 574 × 10−4) being ten times more magnetic than samples at a greater distance. Most of this decrease of intensity occurs within a few kilometers (less than 6 km) of the central axis and within the zone of active volcanism. It is suggested that this dramatic drop in intensity is caused by viscous decay enhanced by thermal cycling or by chemical change in the narrow volcanic axial zone.Certain other properties of the basalts vary with distance; the blocking temperatures and stability (versus a.f. demagnetization) increase, and the ratio FeO/Fe2O3 decreases with distance. These changes are most marked at the inner slopes of the Crestal Mountains not within the narrow axial zone, and it is possible that they reflect sampling bias, the samples from the Median Valley being from flow margins, whereas the collections from the flanks contain material from the centers of flows.Non-basaltic rocks include serpentinized peridotite, greenstone, gabbro, and diabase. Serpentinized peridotite samples are strongly magnetic and have a mean intensity of 23 × 10−4 cgs cm−3. Greenstones, gabbros, and diabases are weakly magnetized, with mean intensities of about 10−4. Moreover, basalt showing partial alteration to greenstone has intermediate intensities showing that such a metamorphic process effectively demagnetizes a rock. This result is more consistent with the idea that Layer 3 is composed predominantly of gabbro and metamorphosed basalt rather than of serpentinized peridotite. The remanence and susceptibilities of 18 "erratic" samples, which are thought from other evidence to have been deposited by Pleistocene icebergs, have a wide and irregular spread.

The numerous lamprophyric sheet units which make up a substantial portion of the Bermuda Seamount appear to have been intruded about 33 m.y. ago. The pre-existing pile of tholeiitic submarine lavas may be substantially older, possibly as old as the surrounding sea floor (that is, they were formed as early as 110 m.y. ago).