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Melilitites: partial melts of the thermal boundary layer?

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Abstract

Silica-poor, calcium-rich melilitites form a chemical and isotopic end-member of the spectrum of mafic magmas of the Tertiary-Quaternary volcanic province of western and central Europe. We propose that these unusual magmas are derived by partial melting of the thermal boundary layer (TBL) at the base of the European lithosphere. The processes involved in the evolution of the TBL have been constrained using major and trace element and Nd-Sr-Pb isotope data for Tertiary melilitites from the Urach, Hegau, and Rhine graben regions of Germany. The initiation of boundary layer evolution is limited in time by a major phase of Permo-Carboniferous rifting and associated magmatism postdating the Hercynian orogeny which would have destroyed the existing TBL by delamination. Model calculations indicate that the isotopic composition of the melilitite source cannot develop within the TBL over geologically reasonable periods of time (250–300 Million years) if the TBL evolves solely by incorporation of small degree (<0.1%) partial melts from an underlying, convecting, depleted (MORB-source) mantle reservoir. On the basis of this observation, the regional geodynamic setting and the melilitite data, we propose that an isotopically distinct mantle plume, impinging on the base of the European lithosphere during the Early Cenozoic, is involved in the petrogenesis of the melilitite magmas.

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  1. Elizabeth Ann Dunworth

    Present address: Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Carleton University, K1S 5B6, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, U.K.

    Marjorie Wilson, Jeffrey M. Rosenbaum & Elizabeth Ann Dunworth

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Wilson, M., Rosenbaum, J.M. & Dunworth, E.A. Melilitites: partial melts of the thermal boundary layer?. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 119, 181–196 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00307280

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