ALBERT

Description: High-Mg ultrapotassic volcanic rock occurrences of lamproitic affinity are exposed in southwestern Anatolia, mostly within the Menderes Massif. From north to south the lamproitic volcanism shows increasingly younger ages ranging from 20 to 4 Ma. Volcanism is contemporaneous with more voluminous shoshonitic, high-K calc-alkaline, and ultrapotassic magmatic activity in the Simav–Selendi, Usak, Kirka, Köroglu, Afyon and Isparta–Gölcük areas. The southward decrease in the age of the volcanism correlates with changes in geochemical composition, particularly a decrease in 87 Sr/ 86 Sr, 207 Pb/ 204 Pb, Zr/Nb and Th/Nb, and an increase in 143 Nd/ 144 Nd, 176 Hf/ 177 Hf, 206 Pb/ 204 Pb, 208 Pb/ 204 Pb and Ce/Pb, thus delineating a systematic change from orogenic (crust-like) to anorogenic (convecting mantle-like) signatures. Rare earth element compositions of clinopyroxene phenocrysts demonstrate an increasing role for residual garnet for locations in the central parts of the Menderes Massif, indicating a lithosphere thickness greater than 80 km. In contrast, K 2 O abundances remain nearly constant at around 7%, indicating buffering by phlogopite in the mantle source. Magma genesis in southwestern Anatolia is controlled by post-collisional extensional events initiated after major lithospheric thickening. Geochemical constraints suggest that the mantle source experienced two main geodynamic stages. The first stage caused ultradepletion of the mantle and subsequent metasomatic enrichment, which allowed coupling of the geochemical signatures of ultradepleted harzburgite with those of crust-derived sediments. This happened during the final closure stages of the southern Neotethys Ocean and the accretion of forearc oceanic lithosphere (island-arc type), as shallowly subducted material to the Anatolian lithosphere. The second stage is post-collisional, and is related to the collapse of the orogenic belt and the development of extension-related horst and graben structures. This stage is concurrent with the initiation of a thermal anomaly originating from a gap, identified by seismic tomography, in the subducted slab under western Anatolia. We propose that the lithospheric mantle underwent intense ‘asthenospherization’ owing to lithosphere–asthenosphere interaction, caused by the southward expansion of this gap during slab roll-back. The geochemical resemblance of the lamproites to more voluminous, contemporaneous shoshonitic magmas implies their derivation from a heterogeneous mantle source that had been affected by similar processes. These mantle processes may be closely associated with the major episode of uplift in the Menderes Massif.

Description: Redox melting refers to any process by which melt is generated by the contact of a rock with a fluid or melt with a contrasting oxidation state. It was originally applied to melting owing to the oxidation of reduced CH 4 - and H 2 -bearing fluids in contact with more oxidized blocks in the mantle, particularly recycled crustal blocks. This oxidation mechanism causes an increase in the activity of H 2 O by the reaction of CH 4 with O 2 , and the increased a H 2 O causes a rapid drop in the solidus temperature, and is here termed hydrous redox melting (HRM). Recently, a second redox melting mechanism (carbonate redox melting; CRM) has been discovered that operates in more oxidized conditions, and may post-date the first mechanism in the same geographical area, explaining the sequence of igneous rock types from lamproites to ultramafic lamprophyres that occurs during the development of rifts through cratons. The CRM mechanism relies on the oxidation of solid carbon as graphite or diamond that has accumulated in the lithosphere over time. The solidus temperature for rocks with both CO 2 and H 2 O is lower than in conditions with H 2 O alone; it does not occur at depths less than 65 km, but has recently been confirmed experimentally to depths of at least 200 km. Melts produced by HRM are not SiO 2 -undersaturated, even at depths of 200 km, and may often resemble lamproites or SiO 2 -rich picrites, whereas melts produced by CRM are always SiO 2 -undersaturated and range from carbonatitic to ultramafic lamprophyric or melilititic with increasing degree of melting. The operation of redox melting may be more common than has been recognized because the oxidation state of the upper mantle is not uniform as a function of depth, geodynamic setting or geological time. The general decrease of oxygen fugacity ( f O 2 ) of c . 0·7 log units per 1 GPa pressure increase dictates that rapidly subducted oceanic lithosphere will be considerably more oxidized than ambient mantle peridotite at depths of 200–300 km. Hydrothermal alteration (serpentinization), addition of continental or carbonate sediments, and dehydration reactions during subduction all contribute to the heterogeneity of oxidation states in the subducted slab, which may vary over 6 log units; this raises the potential for redox reactions on local and regional scales. The oceanic lithosphere has a lower average f O 2 than either continental or cratonic mantle lithosphere at a given depth, so that the HRM mechanism dominates in recycled blocks and at the base of the continental lithosphere. The higher thermal gradients dictate that HRM is more common in the modern Earth beneath ocean islands and in upwelling mantle currents than in subduction zones. The oxidation state of the mantle is often described as having been constant since 3·5 Ga, but this overlooks the bias towards continental samples. Redox melting of oxidized recycled blocks (at approximately the fayalite–magnetite–quartz buffer) in the mantle was not important in the Hadean and Archaean, as it had to await the gradual oxidation of the mantle and the establishment of the subduction process, as well as the stabilization of the continents. The lack of CRM explains the lack of carbonatites before 2·7 Ga. However, the lower f O 2 of the Archaean asthenosphere and higher volatile contents caused more prevalent HRM in the Hadean and Archaean mantle. Degassing is controlled by solubility of volatile species in melts, which are H 2 O-rich but C-poor in reducing conditions. Silicate melts under reduced conditions contain much less carbon but more nitrogen than melts in the modern mantle, arguing for a nitrogen-rich, CO 2 -poor early atmosphere.

Description: The generation of strongly potassic melts in the mantle is generally thought to require the presence of phlogopite in the melting assemblage. In the Mediterranean region, trace element and isotope compositions indicate that continental crustal material is involved in the generation of many potassium-rich lavas. This is clearest in ultrapotassic rocks like lamproites and shoshonites, for which the relevant chemical signals are less diluted by extensive melting of peridotite. Furthermore, melting occurs here in young lithosphere, so the continental crust was not stored for a long period of time in the mantle before reactivation. We have undertaken two types of experiments to investigate the reaction between crust and mantle at 1000–1100 °C and 2–3 GPa. In the first, continental crustal metasediment (phyllite) and depleted peridotite (dunite) were juxtaposed as separate blocks, whereas in the second, the same rock powders were intimately mixed. In the first series, a clear reaction zone dominated by orthopyroxene was formed between dunite and phyllite but no hybridized melt could be found, whereas analyzable pools of hybridized melt occurred throughout the charges in the second series. Melt compositions show high abundances of Rb (100–220 ppm) and Ba (400–870 ppm), and consistent ratios of Nb/Ta (10–12), Zr/Hf (34–42), and Rb/Cs (28–34), similar to bulk continental crust. These experiments demonstrate that melts with as much as 5 wt% K 2 O may result from reaction between melts of continent-derived sediment and depleted peridotite at shallow mantle depths without the need for phlogopite or any other potassic phase in the residue.

Description: We report results of a laser-ICP-MS investigation of trace element contents in the main constituent minerals of an amphibole-bearing migmatite from the Variscan orogen in northeastern Sardinia. The migmatite is associated with migmatised orthogneiss and Al-silicate-bearing pelitic migmatites. The protolith of the amphibole-bearing migmatite was a mid-Ordovician igneous rock of intermediate composition characterised by a biotite + plagioclase + quartz assemblage. The migmatite consists of mesosomes and tonalitic (or, less frequently, granodioritic) leucosomes, characterised by amphibole crystals (potassian ferropargasite) up to 2 cm in size. The tonalitic leucosomes are made up of quartz, plagioclase, ±K-feldspar, biotite, ±amphibole, garnet. The mesosomes are foliated rocks made up of the same minerals with different modal proportions. In leucosomes, amphibole is the most abundant mafic mineral, occurring as euhedral crystals rich in plagioclase, quartz, and small garnet inclusions. Garnet occurs as corroded and fractured grains in the matrix or within the amphibole. Zircon forms euhedral bipyramidal grains up to a few hundreds of micrometres in size. Some amphibole rims have higher REE and negative Eu anomalies whereas cores exhibit lower REE and positive Eu anomalies. Garnet has strongly fractionated REE patterns with chondrite-normalised abundances up to 2000 for HREE. Plagioclase has flat REE patterns with pronounced positive Eu anomalies. Zircon displays fractionated REE patterns with HREE enrichment, LREE depletion, positive anomalies for Ce and negative ones for Eu. Monazite shows high REE abundances, LREE enrichment, HREE depletion and negative Eu anomalies. Garnet is mostly a restitic phase, as indicated by significant variation in HREE concentrations between grains in the mesosome, the absence of a noticeable Eu anomaly, and Y depletion in the leucosomes as compared to the mesosomes. In the leucosomes and mesosomes, the cores of zoned amphibole are characterised by positive Eu anomalies: these crystallised from or in the presence of melt produced by anatexis of the original Bt + Pl + Qtz protolith. Adjacent rims with negative Eu-anomalies developed in coexistence with a Eu-depleted melt that had experienced plagioclase fractionation.