Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol.

5, 03097, 2003 c European Geophysical Society 2003

ADAKITES, A KEY TO UNDERSTANDING LILE DEPLETION IN THE LOWER CONTINENTAL CRUST

H.R. Rollinson (1), J. Tarney (2)
(1) Sultan Qaboos University, Oman; hrollin@squ.edu.om, (2) University of Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK

There are now powerful arguments, which indicate that LILE depletion of felsic lower crust during granulite facies metamorphism can no longer be sustained as a mechanism of intra-crustal element fractionation. Instead we propose that LILE depletion of the lower continental crust relates to the process of crust formation. We have taken as our starting position two observations (a) evidence from experimental studies, that through much of the early part of earth history new crust was formed through the partial melting of a basaltic source. In this we include the felsic granulites of the lower continental crust the majority of which are TTG in composition; (b) the suite of elements which is depleted in the lower continental crust overlaps with the suite of elements enriched in island arc magmas, and is thought to have been removed from a subducting slab by dehydration. We argue that the observed element depletion in felsic lower crustal granulites relates to the depletion of the source from which the parent TTG melts were derived. We propose an incremental melting model for a subducting slab in which there is a progression from dehydration to partial melting and adakite-TTG production. Experimental studies show that slab dehydration will produce a residue which is depleted in Rb, which on melting will yield a Rb-depleted adakitic/TTG melt. Different slabs with contrasting thermal histories will experience different dehydration-melting histories. In this way, we seek to explain contrasting K-Rb and U-Th fractionation in slab melts through a combination of dehydration and melting equilibria.

Adakites show very variable K/Rb ratios, similar to that found in felsic granulites, although Th-U concentrations are less extreme. Adakites from the Austral volcanic zone (Stern and Killian, CMP, 1996; Sigmarsson et al. Nature 1998) are have high K/Rb ratios comparable to felsic granulites and are depleted in U, a process which can be related to (a) the large slab melt component in the adakitic melt and (b) the dehydration history of the subducting slab prior to melting. Where U-and Rb depletions are decoupled it is possible to explain the contrasting K-Rb and U-Th fractionation histories via the partial melting process, rather than through slab dehydration. In this case we propose sequestration of U (and Th) in zoisite, present as a minor phase in the eclogitic residue to slab melting.