We have performed piston-cylinder experiments on a primitive martian mantle composition between 0.5 and 2.2 GPa and 1160 to 1550 • C. The composition of melts and residual minerals constrain the possible melting processes on Mars at 50 to 200 km depth under nominally anhydrous conditions. Silicate melts produced by low degrees of melting (<10 wt.%) were analyzed in layers of vitreous carbon spheres or in micro-cracks inside the graphite capsule. The total range of melt fractions investigated extends from 5 to 50 wt.%, and the liquids produced display variable SiO 2 (43.7-59.0 wt.%), MgO (5.3-18.6 wt.%) and Na 2 O + K 2 O (1.0-6.5 wt.%) contents. We provide a new equation to estimate the solidus temperature of the martian mantle: T ( • C) = 1033 + 168.1P (GPa) − 14.22P 2 (GPa), which places the solidus 50 • C below that of fertile terrestrial peridotites. Low-and high-degree melts are compared to martian alkaline rocks and basalts, respectively. We suggest that the parental melt of Adirondack-class basalts was produced by ∼25 wt.% melting of the primitive martian mantle at 1.5 GPa (∼135 km) and ∼1400 • C. Despite its brecciated nature, NWA 7034/7533 might be composed of material that initially crystallized from a primary melt produced by ∼10-30 wt.% melting at the same pressure. Other igneous rocks from Mars require mantle reservoirs with different CaO/Al 2 O 3 and FeO/MgO ratios or the action of fractional crystallization. Alkaline rocks can be derived from mantle sources with alkali contents (∼0.5 wt.%) similar to the primitive mantle.

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International audienc

The Bjerkreim-Sokndal Layered Intrusion is a large (~230 km 2 ), discordant, Late Protero-zoic, post-orogenic pluton in the Egersund-Farsund Igneous Province. The intrusion was em-placed shortly after massif-type anorthosite plutons and is cut by jotunite dykes. It contains a >7000 m thick Layered Series consisting of rocks belonging to the anorthosite kindred: andes-ine anorthosite, leuconorite, troctolite, norite, gabbronorite, mangerite, and quartz mangerite. Cumulates in the Layered Series are organized in 6 megacyclic units (MCU 0 to IV), individually up to 1800 m thick, but varying considerably in thickness and development along strike. The highest-temperature cumulates are troctolites containing plagioclase of ~An 54 and olivine of ~Fo 77 · Phase contacts in the macrocyclic units reflect crystallization of the silicate minerals in the order plagioclase (± olivine), orthopyroxene, Ca-rich pyroxene, pigeonite. Il-menite crystallized early and apatite appeared as a cumulus mineral at about the same time as Ca-rich pyroxene. Cumulus magnetite followed orthopyroxene and preceded Ca-rich pyroxene in MCU III and ΓV, but crystallized after Ca-rich pyroxene in MCU IB. MCUs 0, IA and II do not contain cumulates with cumulus magnetite or Ca-rich pyroxene. Olivine (~Fo 50 ) reappears in the uppermost part of the Layered Series where there is a rapid stratigraphic transition to mangerite and quartz mangerite. The basal parts of MCUs III and ΓV are characterized by thin sequences of plagioclase, plagioclaseorthopyroxene-ilmenite and orthopyroxene-ilmenite cumulates in which there are systematic upward decreases in initial Sr isotope ratios. They are overlain by troctolite (plagioclase-olivine cumulate) and are believed to have crystallized from hybrid magmas. The MCUs, the discordant geometry of phase contacts, the stratigraphic variations in initial 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratio (0.7049-0.7085), and the abundance of xenoliths suggest crystallization of the cumulates at the base of a periodically-replenished, compositionally-zoned magma chamber that was continually assimilating country rocks. The parent, as indicated by medium-grained jotunite along country-rock contacts, appears to have been an evolved, Ti-rich magma similar to ferrobasalt, but poor in diopside components. Systematic stratigraphic variations in initial 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratio at the base of MCU IΠ and MCU IV suggest that influx of magma into the chamber was accompanied by mixing with resident, contaminated magma.

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