39Ar–40Ar ages and geochemistry of the basaltic shield stage of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Abstract

We report the first 39Ar–40Ar ages from the three early basic shield-like massifs of Tenerife, Canary islands, and couple these with detailed major and trace element chemistry to constrain the nature and timing of the mantle melting processes. The massifs have chemically different sources, and independent evolutionary histories. The Teno and Roque del Conde massifs appear chemically to represent the products of single mantle melting cycles, with progressive decrease in mean melt fraction and increase in mean melting depth in younger rocks. The Teno massif (NW) was erupted in a short time period around 6.0–6.4Ma, while at least the lower half of the Roque del Conde massif (SW) is older than 11Ma. In contrast, the Anaga massif (NE) is polygenetic, with 39Ar–40Ar ages ranging from 8.0–4.2Ma, and no simple stratigraphic chemical progression. These ages run counter to published suggestions of progressive younging of Canary shield stages to the southwest. Basic rocks in all three massifs are the result of much deeper melting and smaller melt fractions than equivalent units in Gran Canaria, but nevertheless the melting column must have extended significantly into the spinel facies, requiring substantial disruption of the local lithosphere. The age and melting relationships broadly support the mantle blob model for Canary magmatism proposed by Hoernle and Schmincke (Hoernle, K., Schminke, H.-U., 1993. The role of partial melting in the 15-Ma geochemical evolution of Gran Canaria: a blob model for the Canary hotspot. J. Petrol. 34, 599–626). In all three massifs, extensive fractional crystallisation has taken place at crustal levels so that mean MgO contents are only some 6–7%. The fractionation sequence is olivine–clinopyroxene–magnetite in basaltic compositions, with the involvement of plagioclase, amphibole and apatite only to generate the infrequent more evolved hawaiites to benmoreites. Despite the abundance of basanitic magmas in the Tenerife older massifs, these follow a differentiation trend towards weakly undersaturated benmoreite rather than to phonolite. This probably reflects early crystallisation of magnetite, perhaps resulting from somewhat high oxygen fugacity. The chemical evidence for replenished magma chambers in Tenerife described by Neumann et al. (Neumann, E.R., Wulff-Oedersen, E., Simonsen, S.L., Pearson, N.J., Martı́, J., Mitjavila, J., 1999. Evidence for fractional crystallisation of periodically refilled magma chambers in Tenerife, Canary Islands. J. Petrol. 40, 1089–1123) is a consequence of treating as a single cogenetic suite the products of several magmatic systems that differ in parental melt fraction.