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Seawater-sediment-basalt interactions: stable isotope (H, O) and elemental fluxes within the Ordovician volcano-sedimentary sequence of Erquy (Brittany, France)

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Abstract

The Ordovician volcano-sedimentary succession of Erquy (northern Brittany) is made of immature sediments thermally metamorphosed at the contact of intruding basic sills. Pillow lavas constitute the upper part of the sequence. The trace element geochemistry of sills and pillow lavas suggests that they were derived from a tholeiitic source located beneath a passive margin. This volcanic sequence was metamorphosed under low to moderate greenschist facies conditions. In this study the direction and amplitude of chemical and isotopic fluxes in the basalt-sediment-water system were established and the oxygen and hydrogen isotope compositions of the aqueous fluid that reacted with the volcanic rocks were characterized. Cationic thermometry on chlorites and isotopic thermometry on plagioclase-chlorite pairs indicate closure metamorphic temperatures in the range 200–250°C for the basaltic sills. Stable isotope compositions of iron-rich chlorites (δ18O-5.5‰; δD from-60 to-50‰) and plagioclases (δ18O from +9 to +10‰) reveal that the source of the fluid was certainly seawater. The δ18O variations within the sills are strongly correlated with the rate of progress of the main metamorphic reaction:clinopyroxene+plagioclase+ilmenite → chlorite+albite+epidote+quartz+sphene that produced major element mobility at the scale of the volcanosedimentary sequence. Calculation of elemental fluxes by mass balance combined with oxygen isotopic compositions of basalts shows that the highest water-rock ratios (≥1) were at sill-sediment boundaries and within pillow lavas at the top of the pile. The volcanosedimentary sequence of Erquy was a net sink for Na and a source for Ca. No Mg uptake could be detected whereas the hydrothermal alteration of the sediments released Fe, Si, and K trapped by the volcanic rocks. The δ18O value of the fluid reacting with sills appears to have shifted no more than +4‰ after percolation at low temperature through immature sediments (δ18O≈12‰). The Erquy volcano-sedimentary sequence represents a marine hydrothermal system dominated by low-temperature exchange which allowed a general 18O-enrichment of the volcanic rocks and a 18O-depletion of sediments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Géochimie Isotopique, Géosciences Rennes UPR 4661, Université de Rennes I, Campus de Beaulieu, Avenue du Général Leclerc, F-35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    C. Lécuyer & F. Martineau

  2. 47, Avenue Aristide Briand, F-35000, Rennes, France

    P. Grandjean

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  1. C. Lécuyer
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  2. P. Grandjean
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Lécuyer, C., Grandjean, P. & Martineau, F. Seawater-sediment-basalt interactions: stable isotope (H, O) and elemental fluxes within the Ordovician volcano-sedimentary sequence of Erquy (Brittany, France). Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 120, 249–264 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00306506

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