Geochemistry and geochronology of the ∼0.82 Ga high–Mg gabbroic dykes from the Quanji Massif, southeast Tarim Block, NW China: Implications for the Rodinia supercontinent assembly

Abstract

The role of the Tarim Block in the reconstruction of the Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia remains contentious. Here we report a suite of high–Mg gabbroic dykes from the Yingfeng area in northwestern Quanji Massif, which is considered as a fragment of the Tarim Block in NW China. Magmatic zircons from these dykes yield to have a weighted mean 206Pb/238U age of 822.2±5.3Ma, recording the timing of their emplacement. The gabbros have high MgO (9.91–13.09wt%), Mg numbers (69.89–75.73) and CaO (8.41–13.55wt%), medium FeOt (8.50–9.67wt%) and TiO2 (0.67–0.93wt%), variable Al2O3 (13.04–16.07wt%), and high Cr (346.14–675.25ppm), but relatively low Ni (138.72–212.94ppm), suggestive of derivation from a primary magma. The rocks display chondrite-normalized LREE patterns with weak fractionation but flat HREE patterns relative to those of the N-MORB. Their primitive mantle normalized trace elemental patterns show positive Rb, Ba and U but negative Th, Nb, Ti and Zr anomalies, carrying characteristics of both mid-ocean ridge basalts and arc basalts. The εHf(t) values of the zircons from these rocks vary from +4.7 to +13.5 with depleted mantle model ages (TDM) of 1.23–0.85Ga, and the youngest value nearly approaching that for the coeval depleted mantle, suggesting significant addition of juvenile materials. Our data suggest that the strongly depleted basaltic magma was probably sourced from a depleted mantle source that had undergone metasomatism by subduction–related components in a back-arc setting. Accordingly we postulate that a subduction–related tectonic regime possibly prevailed at ∼0.8Ga along the southeastern margin of the Tarim Block. Combining with available information from the northern Tarim Block, we propose an opposite verging double–sided subduction model for coeval subduction of the oceanic crust beneath both the southern and northern margins of the Tarim Block during early Neoproterozoic.