Multiple origins for mantle harzburgites: examples from the Lewis Hills, Bay of Islands ophiolite, Newfoundland
Harzburgite is a common rock type in ophiolites and alpine peridotites. It is considered to be typical of a residual mantle mineralogy, i.e., material left behind after periods of extensive mantle melting and melt–rock and fluid–rock interactions that produce a variety of basaltic melts. The process...
Published in: | Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences |
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Main Authors: | , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Canadian Science Publishing
1995
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/e95-086 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/e95-086 |
Summary: | Harzburgite is a common rock type in ophiolites and alpine peridotites. It is considered to be typical of a residual mantle mineralogy, i.e., material left behind after periods of extensive mantle melting and melt–rock and fluid–rock interactions that produce a variety of basaltic melts. The processes by which these melts and residua are produced are complicated; therefore, to fully understand them, it is necessary to undertake detailed and integrated field, petrographic, and geochemical studies of large exposures of mantle material as part of the investigative process. Such a study in the Bay of Islands ophiolite exposed in the Lewis Hills of Newfoundland has enabled the identification of four major types of harzburgite, which represent examples of a complete spectrum of this rock type. Depleted, residual harzburgite and associated dunite, with positive-sloping rare earth element patterns, may develop U-shaped rare earth element patterns and a visible orthopyroxene enrichment by the introduction of a component of high-Mg, quartz-normative melt, or a hydrous fluid component with a high Si/Al ratio. Conversely, U-shaped rare earth element patterns and apparent orthopyroxene depletion may occur by the addition of low-Si/Al, hydrous fluid. Such enrichments and depletions of orthopyroxene by solution–precipitation reactions may result not only in the variety of harzburgite types, which on partial melting might produce a range of melt products, but also in fronts of harzburgite migrating through the mantle. |
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