Frontiers in Earth Science (Nov 2020)
Early-Stage Melt-Rock Reaction in a Cooling Crystal Mush Beneath a Slow-Spreading Mid-Ocean Ridge (IODP Hole U1473A, Atlantis Bank, Southwest Indian Ridge)
Abstract
Microtextural and chemical evidence from gabbros indicates that melts may react with the crystal framework as they migrate through crystal mushes beneath mid-ocean ridges; however, the importance of this process for the compositional evolution of minerals and melts remains a matter of debate. Here we provide new insights into the extent by which melt-rock reaction process can occur in oceanic gabbros by conducting a detailed study of cryptic reactive melt migration as preserved in an apparently unremarkable, homogeneous olivine gabbro from deep within a section of the plutonic footwall of the Atlantis Bank core complex on the Southwest Indian Ridge (International ocean discovery program Hole U1473A). High-resolution chemical maps reveal that mineral zoning increases toward and becomes extreme within a cm-wide band that is characterized by elevated incompatible trace element concentrations and generates extreme more/less incompatible element ratios. We demonstrate that neither crystallization of trapped melt nor diffusion can account for these observations. Instead, taking the novel approach of correcting mineral-melt partition coefficients for both temperature and composition, we show that these chemical variations can be generated by intergranular reactive porous flow of a melt as it migrated through the mush framework, and whose composition evolved by melt-rock reaction as it progressively localized into a cm-scale reactive channel. We propose that the case reported here may represent, in microcosm, a preserved snapshot of a generic mechanism by which melt can percolate through primitive mafic (olivine gabbro) crystal mushes, and be modified toward more evolved compositions via near-pervasive reactive transport.
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