After travelling in Earth’s interior for up to billions of years, recycled material once injected at subduction zones can reach a subridge melting region as pyroxenite dispersed in the host peridotitic mantle. Here we study genetically related crustal basalts and mantle peridotites sampled along an uplifted lithospheric section created at a segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge through a time interval of 26 million years. The arrival of low-solidus material into the melting region forces the elemental and isotopic imprint of the residual peridotites and of the basalts to diverge with time. We show that a pyroxenite-bearing source entering the subridge melting region induces undercooling of the host peridotitic mantle, due to subtraction of latent heat by melting of the low-T-solidus pyroxenite. Mantle undercooling, in turn, lowers the thermal boundary layer, leading to a deeper cessation of melting. A consequence is to decrease the total amount of extracted melt, and hence the magmatic crustal thickness. The degree of melting undergone by a homogeneous peridotitic mantle is higher than the degree of melting of the same peridotite but veined by pyroxenites. This effect, thermodynamically predicted for a marble-cake-type peridotite–pyroxenite mixed source, implies incomplete homogenization of recycled material in the convective mantle.
Thermal effects of pyroxenites on mantle melting below mid-ocean ridges / Brunelli, Daniele; Cipriani, Anna; Bonatti, Enrico. - In: NATURE GEOSCIENCE. - ISSN 1752-0908. - 11:7(2018), pp. 520-525. [10.1038/s41561-018-0139-z]
Thermal effects of pyroxenites on mantle melting below mid-ocean ridges
Brunelli, Daniele
;Cipriani, Anna
;
2018
Abstract
After travelling in Earth’s interior for up to billions of years, recycled material once injected at subduction zones can reach a subridge melting region as pyroxenite dispersed in the host peridotitic mantle. Here we study genetically related crustal basalts and mantle peridotites sampled along an uplifted lithospheric section created at a segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge through a time interval of 26 million years. The arrival of low-solidus material into the melting region forces the elemental and isotopic imprint of the residual peridotites and of the basalts to diverge with time. We show that a pyroxenite-bearing source entering the subridge melting region induces undercooling of the host peridotitic mantle, due to subtraction of latent heat by melting of the low-T-solidus pyroxenite. Mantle undercooling, in turn, lowers the thermal boundary layer, leading to a deeper cessation of melting. A consequence is to decrease the total amount of extracted melt, and hence the magmatic crustal thickness. The degree of melting undergone by a homogeneous peridotitic mantle is higher than the degree of melting of the same peridotite but veined by pyroxenites. This effect, thermodynamically predicted for a marble-cake-type peridotite–pyroxenite mixed source, implies incomplete homogenization of recycled material in the convective mantle.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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