Mantle segmentation along the Oman ophiolite fossil mid-ocean ridge

Abstract

It has been difficult to relate the segmentation of mid-ocean ridges to processes occurring in the Earth's underlying mantle, as the mantle is rarely sampled directly and chemical variations observed in lavas at the surface are heavily influenced by details of their production as melt extracted from the mantle. Our understanding of such mantle processes has therefore relied on the analysis of pieces of fossil oceanic lithosphere now exposed at the Earth's surface, known as ophiolites. Here we present the phase chemistry and whole-rock major- and trace-element contents of 174 samples of the mantle collected along over 400 km of the Oman Sultanate ophiolite. We show that, when analysed along the fossil ridge, variations of elemental ratios sensitive to the melting process define a three-dimensional geometry of mantle upwellings, which can be related to the segmentation observed in modern mid-ocean ridge environments.