Easter microplate evolution: Pb isotope evidence

Abstract

We report on 53 Pb isotope analyses of basalts from 48 dredge stations occupied along the spreading boundaries of the Easter microplate and adjacent East Pacific Rise (EPR). Also included in the study are seven analyses of basalts from Easter and Sala y Gomez islands. A major anomaly is observed on the East Rift, around 27°S, where this ridge is shallowest and closest to Easter and Sala y Gomez islands. Basalts from the West Rift are less radiogenic. The means for the two rift populations are distinct, but their ranges overlap significantly. On the average, there is a systematic westward decrease in radiogenic Pb content with distance from Sala y Gomez. The Pb isotope anomaly is confined to the boundaries of the Microplate and the total range exceeds that of the entire EPR, both in the most and the least end of radiogenic Pb content. Radiogenic Pb content covaries with (La/Sm)N ratios with the exception of a nepheline‐normative picritic basalt glass outlier. The trends are curvilinear. There is no correlation between the Pb isotope ratios and the bulk composition of the lavas. In Pb versus Pb isotope diagrams, basalts from the East and West rifts form two tight linear trends of statistically indistinguishable slope. Basalts from Easter and Sala y Gomez islands lie on the upper end of these trends. A binary mixing process between a radiogenic source similar to that present beneath Sala y Gomez and the large ion lithophile element (LILE)‐depleted mid‐ocean ridge basalt (MORB) source is strongly suggested. There is no trace of the Dupal anomaly beneath the microplate nor beneath Easter or Sala y Gomez Islands. If the Dupal anomaly is indeed continuous and of semi global extent, it must lie deeper in the mantle than the depths at which basaltic melts take source beneath the microplate and these two islands. There is also no correlation between the apparent dispersion of Pb isotope ratios and the rate at which the various ridge segments of the microplate spread. Tests of the plum pudding model across fracture zones, where smaller degrees of melting might have prevailed and preferential melting of the LILE‐rich veins or plums may take place, were found to be inconclusive. In contrast, the overall variation in Pb isotopes, (La/Sm)N, and tectonic and kinematic evolution of the EPR, strongly support that the hotspot source‐migrating ridge model may indeed be applicable to the region. Independent evidence suggests that the tectonic and geochemical anomaly associated with the Easter microplate is the result of the influence of a lateral mantle plume flow at shallow depth in the upper‐mantle, connecting the Sala y Gomez plume with the westward migrating EPR. A small discontinuity in Pb isotope variation associated with the 25°S propagating East Rift, as also found across the 95.5°W propagator on the Galapagos Spreading Center, further supports the concept that the flux of the plume may pulsate; that is, the plume is discontinuous and probably rises in the form of a chain of blobs. The repeated tectonic disturbances and propagation of new rifts which characterize the evolution of the Easter microplate may coincide and be caused by the appearance of such blobs in the upper most mantle, as we have previously suggested for the Galapagos. There is a remarkable similarity in the geochemical, petrological, and tectonic configuration of the Easter microplate‐Sala y Gomez hotspot system with that of the Galapagos, which suggests that very similar processes are at work in the two regions.