Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : Primary arc melts may form through fluxed or adiabatic decompression melting in the mantle wedge, or via a combination of both processes. Major limitations to our understanding of the formation of primary arc melts stem from the fact that most arc lavas are aggregated blends of individual magma batches, further modified by differentiation processes in the sub-arc mantle lithosphere and overlying crust. Primary melt generation is thus masked by these types of second-stage processes. Magma-hosted peridotites sampled as xenoliths in subduction zone magmas are possible remnants of sub-arc mantle and magma generation processes, but are rarely sampled in active arcs. Published studies have emphasised the predominantly harzburgitic lithologies with particularly high modal orthopyroxene in these xenoliths; the former characteristic reflects the refractory nature of these materials consequent to extensive melt depletion of a lherzolitic protolith whereas the latter feature requires additional explanation.Here we present major and minor element data for pristine, mantle-derived, lava-hosted spinel-bearing harzburgite and dunite xenoliths and associated primitive melts from the active Kamchatka and Bismarck arcs. We show that these peridotite suites, and other mantle xenoliths sampled in circum-Pacific arcs, are a distinctive peridotite type not found in other tectonic settings, and are melting residues from hydrous melting of silica-enriched mantle sources. We explore the ability of experimental studies allied with mantle melting parameterisations (pMELTS, Petrolog3) to reproduce the compositions of these arc peridotites, and present a protolith (‘hybrid mantle wedge’) composition that satisfies the available constraints. The composition of peridotite xenoliths recovered from erupted arc magmas plausibly requires their formation initially via interaction of slab-derived components with refractory mantle prior to or during the formation of primary arc melts. The liquid compositions extracted from these hybrid sources are higher in normative quartz and hypersthene (i.e., they have a more silica-saturated character) in comparison with basalts derived from prior melt-depleted asthenospheric mantle beneath ridges. These primary arc melts range from silica-rich picrite to boninite and high-Mg basaltic andesite along a residual spinel harzburgite cotectic. Silica enrichment in the mantle sources of arc-related, subalkaline picrite-boninite-andesite suites coupled with the amount of water and depth of melting, are important for the formation of medium-Fe (‘calc-alkaline’) andesite-dacite-rhyolite suites, key lithologies forming the continental crust.
ISSN: 0016-7037

hal-01553520
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01553520
DOI : 10.1016/j.gca.2016.09.030

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
The Middle Atlas is a region where xenolith-bearing volcanism roughly coincides with the maximum of lithospheric thinning beneath continental Morocco. It is therefore a key area to study the mechanisms of lithospheric thinning and constrain the component of mantle buoyancy that is required to explain the Moroccan topography. Samples from the two main xenolith localities, the Bou Ibalghatene and Tafraoute maars, have been investigated for their mineralogy, microstructures, crystallographic preferred orientation, and whole-rock and mineral compositions. While Bou Ibalghatene belongs to the main Middle Atlas volcanic field, in the ‘tabular’ Middle Atlas, Tafraoute is situated about 45 km away, on the North Middle Atlas Fault that separates the ‘folded’ Middle Atlas, to the South-East, from the ‘tabular’ Middle Atlas, to the North-West. Both xenolith suites record infiltration of sub-lithospheric melts that are akin to the Middle Atlas volcanism but were differentiated to variable degrees as a result of interactions with lithospheric mantle. However, while the Bou Ibalghatene mantle was densely traversed by high melt fractions, mostly focused in melt conduits, the Tafraoute suite records heterogeneous infiltration of smaller melt fractions that migrated diffusively, by intergranular porous flow. As a consequence the lithospheric mantle beneath Bou Ibalghaten was strongly modified by melt–rock interactions in the Cenozoic whereas the Tafraoute mantle preserves the record of extensional lithospheric thinning, most likely related to Mesozoic rifting. The two xenolith suites illustrate distinct mechanisms of lithospheric thinning: extensional thinning in Tafraoute, where hydrous incongruent melting triggered by decompression probably played a key role in favouring strain localisation, vs. thermal erosion in Bou Ibalghatene, favoured and guided by a dense network of melt conduits. Our results lend support to the suggestion that lithospheric thinning beneath the Atlas mountains results from the combination of different mechanisms and occurred in a piecewise fashion at a short wavelength scale.
ISSN: 0040-1951

hal-01171756
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01171756
DOI : 10.1016/j.tecto.2014.11.020

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : Siberian cratonic mantle
International audience
The processes that control water distribution in nominally anhydrous minerals from peridotites are twofold. Melt depletion will remove water while metasomatism can potentially add water to these minerals. These processes can lead to a wide range of outcomes in water contents, which in turn could play a role in mantle rheology and long-term cratonic root stability. To examine these complexities, water concentrations in minerals from well-characterized peridotites from the Udachnaya kimberlite in the central Siberian craton were analyzed by FTIR. The peridotites span a complete top to bottom cross-section of typical cratonic lithospheric mantle (2-7 GPa and 700-1400 °C). Diffusion modeling of water content profiles across olivine grains shows that water loss during decompression is limited to the 100 μm rims of olivines; the cores preserved their mantle water contents. Water contents range from 6 to 323 ppm wt H2O in olivine, 28-301 ppm H2O in orthopyroxene (opx), 100-272 ppm H2O in clinopyroxene (cpx) and 0-23 ppm H2O in garnet. Melting modeling cannot reproduce the high water contents of cratonic mantle peridotites and any potential partial melting trend must have been erased by later events. The water contents of minerals, however, are correlated with modal abundances of clinopyroxene and garnet, bulk rock FeO, TiO2 and SiO2 as well as with light and middle rare earth elements in clinopyroxene and garnet. These relationships are best interpreted as interaction of residual, melt-depleted peridotites with silicate melt, which produced modal and cryptic metasomatism. Importantly, the water enrichment in the Siberian cratonic mantle took place prior to kimberlite magmatism and eruption. Water addition by metasomatism occurred from pressures >4 GPa all the way to the base of the cratonic root below central Siberia, but was limited to shallower levels (<5 GPa) in the Kaapvaal cratonic lithosphere. The difference in olivine water contents at the deepest levels of the Kaapvaal (<5 ppm H2O) and Siberian (6-323 ppm H2O) cratonic roots may be linked to oxygen fugacity and resulting fluid speciation or, alternatively, to reaction with different metasomatic agents. Calculated viscosities for the deepest Udachnaya samples are similar to those inferred for the asthenosphere. If these xenoliths are representative of the deep cratonic lithosphere, water is not as important a parameter as previously thought in the strength of cratonic lithosphere, otherwise the cratonic root beneath Udachnaya would have been delaminated. Alternatively, the metasomatic xenoliths may not be representative of the Siberian cratonic root and kimberlites preferentially sample cratonic mantle lithosphere material located near, and metasomatized by, melt conduits, which served as channels for upward migration of water-rich melts and fluids including kimberlites. In that case, the cratonic root overall still may have relatively low water contents, which in addition to its less metasomatized (more refractory) and thereby buoyant nature, still play a role in making it strong enough to resist delamination by the surrounding asthenosphere.
ISSN: 0016-7037

hal-01053920
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01053920
DOI : 10.1016/j.gca.2014.04.011

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : Incipient granulite facies conditions and carnockitization affected metasedimentary formations of northern Nigeria during the early stage of the Late Neo-proterozoic (Pan-African) orogeny. This domain is characterized by recumbent foliations consistent with crustal thickening. Far from the Pan-African plutons, initial Barrovian-type metamorphism (medium temperature) evidenced by kyanite and staurolite inclusions is documented only front garnet cores. This early stage was followed by a temperature increase up to >= 700 C, with decompression coeval with the generation of garnet-cordierite melts and emplacement of garnet granitoid sheets. Hectometric-wide layers of non-retrograded granulites survived conformably within anatexites and S-type garnet-bearing anatectic granites from the Toro area. Temperatures of >= 800 C required for the crystallization of granulites facies rocks at c. 0.7 GPa pressure and coeval dry anatexis, were reached regionally as a result of heat supply from abundant anhydrous monzo-dioritic to noritic magmas injected as metre-wide veins and as stocks and pinions (charnockites, monzodiorites). The available geochronological results suggest a long-lived thermal perturbation (638-585 Ma) in this former continental domain of northern Nigeria rooted by Archaean crust that was later the site of the Jurassic anorogenic magmatism.
Proceedings Of The Geologists Association

hal-00407196
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00407196
DOI : 10.1016/S0016-7878(07)80046-0

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
Middle to Late Triassic lavas were sampled within three tectonostratigraphic groups of the Hawasina Nappes in the Oman Mountains. They are predominantly alkali basalts and trachybasalts, associated with minor sub-alkaline basalts, trachyandesites, trachytes and rhyolites. Their major, trace elements and Nd-Pb isotopic compositions are very similar to those of the Permian plume-related high-Ti basalts which also occur in the Hawasina Nappes. The Triassic lavas derive from low-degree melting of an enriched OIB-type mantle source, characterized by εNdi = 0.3-5.3 and (206Pb/204Pb)i = 16.96-19.31 (for t = 230 My). With time, melting depths decreased from the garnet + spinel to the spinel lherzolite facies and the degree of melting increased. The oldest are distinguished from the others by unradiogenic Nd and Pb signatures, with εNdi = − 4.5 to − 1.2 and (206Pb/204Pb)i = 16.35-17.08, which we attribute to their contamination by Arabo-Nubian lower crust. The lavas likely derived from the Oman lithospheric mantle, the original DMM-HIMU signature of which was overprinted during its pervasive metasomatism by the Permian plume-related melts. We suggest that these lavas were emplaced during post-breakup decompression-triggered melting in the Middle Triassic during global kinematic reorganization of the Tethyan realm.
ISSN: 0024-4937

insu-00559080
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00559080
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00559080/document
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00559080/file/FC_TriasOman.pdf
DOI : 10.1016/j.lithos.2010.12.006

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Oxford University Press (OUP)
Résumé : International audience
Detailed structural and petrological mapping in the Beni Bousera peridotite (Rif Belt, northern Morocco) shows that this orogenic peridotite massif is composed of four tectono-metamorphic domains with consistent kinematics, marked by a pervasive, shallowly dipping foliation with a NW-SE stretching lineation that progressively rotates towards a NNE-SSW orientation in the lowermost part of the massif. From top to bottom, these domains are garnet-spinel mylonites, Ariègite subfacies fine-grained porphyroclastic spinel peridotites, Ariègite-Seiland subfacies porphyroclastic, and Seiland subfacies coarse-porphyroclastic to coarse-granular spinel peridotites. Microstructures and crystal preferred orientations point to deformation dominantly by dislocation creep in all domains, but the continuous increase in average olivine grain size indicates decreasing plastic work rates from top to bottom. This evolution in deformation conditions is consistent with the change in synkinematic pressure and temperature conditions, from 900°C at 2*0 GPa in garnet-spinel mylonites to 1150°C at 1*8 GPa in the Seiland domain. A pervasive diffuse dunitic-websteritic layering subparallel to the foliation suggests deformation in the presence of melt in the Seiland domain. Gravitational instabilities owing to local melt accumulation may account for <200 m wide areas exhibiting a vertical lineation in this domain. To account for the consistent kinematics and the tectono-metamorphic evolution, which implies a temperature gradient of c. 125°C km−1 preserved across the Beni Bousera massif, we propose that the entire massif records the functioning of a low-angle shear zone, a few kilometres wide, which accommodated exhumation of the base of the lithosphere from ∼90 to ∼60 km depth. Partial melting in the Seiland domain may be explained by fast decompression of the footwall, without the need for exotic heat sources. Moreover, if the present-day orientation of the shear zone is similar to that when it was active in the mantle, the stretching lineations at high angle to the metamorphic gradient imply that shearing parallel to the trend of the belt accompanied thinning; that is, a transtensional deformation of the margin.
ISSN: 0022-3530

hal-00950056
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00950056
DOI : 10.1093/petrology/egt067

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
A variety of atypical plume-like structures and focused upwellings that are not rooted in the lower mantle have recently been discussed, and seismological imaging has shown ubiquitous small-scale convection in the uppermost mantle in regions such as the Mediterranean region, the western US, and around the western Pacific. We argue that the three-dimensional return flow and slab fragmentation associated with complex oceanic subduction trajectories within the upper mantle can generate focused upwellings and that these may play a significant role in regional tectonics. The testable surface expressions of this process are the outside-arc alkaline volcanism, topographic swell, and low-velocity seismic anomalies associated with partial melt. Using three-dimensional, simplified numerical subduction models, we show that focused upwellings can be generated both ahead of the slab in the back-arc region (though -five times further inward from the trench than arc-volcanism) and around the lateral edges of the slab (in the order of 100 km away from slab edges). Vertical mass transport, and by inference the associated decompression melting, in these regions appears strongly correlated with the interplay between relative trench motion and subduction velocities. The upward flux of material from the depths is expected to be most pronounced during the first phase of slab descent into the upper mantle or during slab fragmentation. We discuss representative case histories from the Pacific and the Mediterranean where we find possible evidence for such slab-related volcanism.
ISSN: 0012-821X

hal-00553075
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00553075
DOI : 10.1016/j.epsl.2010.08.012

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Résumé : International audience
The Ronda peridotite supplies one of the best objects to document subcontinental mantle deformation, but its internal deformation and exhumation mechanisms remain controversial. Here we provide new structural data and numerical results that constrain the Oligocene-Miocene deformation history of the Ronda massif. We first describe a mantle shear zone in the northern massif that developed subcrustal strain localization during decompression and related partial melting. The deformation regime of this mantle shear zone evolved from penetrative NE-SW stretching to sinistral shear highlighted by discrete shear bands. We then show structural observations that document a viscous deformation in the southern massif occurring prior to the thrust-assisted emplacement of the peridotite during large decompression. Finally, we performed numerical investigations that quantify a high temperature of 980°C for the basal peridotite lens at the time of its crustal emplacement. Our numerical results constrain the timing of ductile deformation of the peridotite just before 22 Ma, probably between 30 and 22 Ma. Altogether, these features led us to conclude that the deformation and exhumation of the Ronda peridotite results from lithosphere thinning subsequently inverted in the course of the Oligocene-Miocene. Among available models, our findings support the hypothesis of peridotite exhumation by the inversion of a thinned back-arc continental lithosphere during westward slab rollback through the Alboran region.
ISSN: 0278-7407

insu-00924180
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00924180
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00924180/document
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00924180/file/tect20062.pdf
DOI : 10.1002/tect.20062

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
The geologic evolution of the South Armenian Block (SAB) in the Mesozoic is reconstructed from a structural, metamorphic, and geochronologic study including U–Pb and 40Ar/39Ar dating. The South Armenian Block Crystalline Basement (SABCB) outcrops solely in a narrow tectonic window, NW of Yerevan. The study of this zone provides key and unprecedented information concerning closing of the Northern Neotethys oceanic domain north of the Taurides-Anatolides platform from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous. The basement comprises of presumed Proterozoic orthogneiss overlain by metamorphosed pelites as well as intrusions of granodiorite and leucogranite during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. Structural, geochronological and petrological observations show a multiphased evolution of the northern margin of the SAB during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. A south-dipping subduction under the East Anatolian Platform-South Armenian Block (EAP-SAB) is proposed in order to suit recent findings pertaining emplacement of relatively hot subduction related granodiorite as well as the metamorphic evolution of the crystalline basement in the Lesser Caucasus area. The metamorphism is interpreted as evidencing: (1) M1 Barrovian MP–MT conditions (staurolite–kyanite) at c. 157–160 Ma and intrusion of dioritic magmas at c. 150–156 Ma, (2) near-adiabatic decompression is featured by partial melting and production of leucogranites at c. 153 Ma, followed by M2 HT–LP conditions (andalusite–K-feldspar). A phase of shearing and recrystallization is ascribed to doming at c. 130–150 Ma and cooling at 400 °C by c. 123 Ma (M3). Structural observations show (1) top to the north shearing during M1 and (2) radial extension during M2. The extensional event ends by emplacement of a thick detrital series along radial S, E and W-dipping normal faults. Further, the crystalline basement is unconformably covered by Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene series dated by nannofossils, evolving from Maastrichtian marly sandstones to Paleocene limestones.
ISSN: 0743-9547

hal-01174077
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01174077
DOI : 10.1016/j.jseaes.2014.07.018

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
Unusual high-pressure inner thermal aureoles are described from the Minador and Angico Torto epidote-bearing tonalitic plutons that emplaced into green schist-facies metasedimentary rocks of the Neoproterozoic Cachoeirinha-Salgueiro belt, northeastern Brazil. The foliated pelitic hornfelses display the mineral assemblage garnet, kyanite, staurolite, muscovite, biotite, plagioclase +/- quartz. Rare fibrolite is only found very close to the contacts. Hornfelses display steep mineral lineations and steeply-dipping foliations concordant with magmatic contacts. Leucocratic veinlets containing quartz, oligoclase, garnet, kyanite, staurolite, rutile and ilmenite suggest that limited melting conditions were reached very close to magmatic contacts (T >= 650 degrees C, P around 8 kbar). These high-pressure hornfelses form a few meters thick, rigid envelopes around the two plutons. Contrary to known examples of kyanite-bearing hornfelses that recorded high-temperature decompression, the nearly isobaric cooling down to ca. 450 degrees C is constrained by 3.20-3.30 Si contents of retrogressive phengites from both inner hornfelses and ductilely-deformed tonalite at the pluton margins. Isograds and bathograds are, therefore, apparently telescoped due to HP/LT shearing, possibly caused by subsequent differential vertical movements affecting these two solidified plutons. The unusual depth of emplacement of these syn-kinematic calc-alkaline plutons is explained by a tentative geodynamic model involving a pre-620 Ma-subduction setting.
ISSN: 0895-9811

hal-00424503
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00424503
DOI : 10.1016/j.jsames.2008.09.005

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Société géologique de France
Résumé : Upper Carboniferous heating and melting of the middle orogenic crust associated with the emplacement of syntectonic granitoids are documented in the Upper Gneissic Unit of the Livradois area (central part of the French Massif Central). Crustal melting post-dates peak metamorphism conditions (800-625 degrees C, 10-8 kb) dated at 360 +/- 4 Ma (U-Th-Pb on monazite). The P-T evolution of the metamorphic series indicates that Barrovian metamorphism was followed by a decompression (from 10 +/- 1 kbar to 6 +/- 1 kbar) associated with either a decrease in temperature in the southern part of the series or with an increase in temperature (of about 150 degrees C) in the northern part of the series. This evolution records the first step of the exhumation of the series coeval with granitoids intrusion, of which the emplacements were dated at 315 +/- 4 and 311 +/- 18 Ma (U-Pb on zircon). The final stage of the exhumation is associated with an isobaric cooling of the whole series. Similarity of Ar-40/Ar-39 ages for biotite in the paragneisses (307-300 Ma) and K-feldspar in the granitoids (306-300 Ma) document rapid cooling for this stage. Moreover dextral reverse mylonites, at the border and the northern part of the metamorphic series indicate north-south compression coeval with the unroofing of the series. Youngest Ar-40-Ar-39 ages on K-feldspar (274.6 +/- 5 Ma) combined with normal shearing in mylonites limiting the Carboniferous Brassac-les-Mines basin document the late Carboniferous-early Permian stage of extension coeval with the upwelling of the Velay granitic dome.
EISSN: 1777-5817

hal-00617429
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00617429
DOI : 10.2113/gssgfbull.182.1.5

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Oxford University Press (OUP)
Résumé : International audience
The nature and extent of the regional lithosphere-asthenosphere interaction beneath Ireland and Britain remains unclear. Although it has been established that ancient Caledonian signatures pervade the lithosphere, tertiary structure related to the Iceland plume has been inferred to dominate the asthenosphere. To address this apparent contradiction in the literature, we image the 3-D lithospheric and deeper upper-mantle structure beneath Ireland via non-linear, iterative joint teleseismic-gravity inversion using data from the ISLE (Irish Seismic Lithospheric Experiment), ISUME (Irish Seismic Upper Mantle Experiment) and GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) experiments. The inversion combines teleseismic relative arrival time residuals with the GRACE long wavelength satellite derived gravity anomaly by assuming a depth-dependent quasilinear velocity-density relationship. We argue that anomalies imaged at lithospheric depths probably reflect compositional contrasts, either due to terrane accretion associated with Iapetus Ocean closure, frozen decompressional melt that was generated by plate stretching during the opening of the north Atlantic Ocean, frozen Iceland plume related magmatic intrusions, or a combination thereof. The continuation of the anomalous structure across the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary is interpreted as possibly reflecting sub-lithospheric small-scale convection initiated by the lithospheric compositional contrasts. Our hypothesis thus reconciles the disparity which exists between lithospheric and asthenospheric structure beneath this region of the north Atlantic rifted margin.
ISSN: 0956-540X

hal-00617815
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00617815
DOI : 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2011.04921.x