A limited role for metasomatized subarc mantle in the generation of boron isotope signatures of arc volcanic rocks

Abstract

Metasomatized sub-arc mantle is often regarded as one of the mantle reservoirs enriched in fluid mobile elements (FME, e.g. B, Li, Cs, As, Sb, Ba, Rb, Pb) which, when subject to wet melting, will contribute to the characteristic FME-rich signature of arc volcanic rocks. Evidence of wet melts in the sub-arc mantle wedge is recorded in metasomatic amphibole-, phlogopite- and pyroxene-bearing veins in ultramafic xenoliths recovered from arc volcanoes. Our new B and δ11B study of such veins in mantle xenoliths from Avachinsky and Shiveluch volcanoes, Kamchatka arc, indicates that slab-derived FME, including B and its characteristically high δ11B, are delivered directly to a melt that experiences limited interaction with the surrounding mantle before eruption. The exceptionally low B contents (from 0.2 to 3.1 µg g-1) and low δ11B (from -16.6 to +0.9 ‰) of mantle xenolith vein minerals are, instead, products of fluids and melts released from the isotopically light subducted and dehydrated altered oceanic crust (AOC) and, to a lesser extent, from isotopically heavy serpentinite. Therefore, melting of amphibole-, and phlogopite-bearing veins in metasomatized mantle wedge cannot alone produce the characteristic FME geochemistry of arc volcanic rocks, which require a comparatively large, isotopically heavy and B-rich serpentinite-derived fluid component in their source.