Mantle–crust interactions in the oceanic lithosphere: Constraints from minor and trace elements in olivine

Abstract

Minor and trace element compositions of olivines are used as probes into the melt-rock reaction processes occurring at the mantle–crust transition in the oceanic lithosphere. We studied mantle and lower crustal sections from the Alpine Jurassic ophiolites, where lithospheric remnants of a fossil slow-spreading ocean are exposed. Olivines from plagioclase-harzburgites and replacive dunites (Fo=91–89mol%) and from olivine-rich troctolites and troctolites (Fo=88–84mol%) were considered. Positive correlations among the concentrations of Mn, Ni, Co, Sc and V characterize the olivines from the dunites. These chemical variations are reconciled with formation by melts produced by a mixed source consisting of a depleted peridotite and a pyroxene-rich, garnet-bearing component melted under different pressure conditions. We thereby infer that the melts extracted through these dunites channels were not fully aggregated after their formation into the asthenospheric mantle.Olivines from the olivine-rich troctolites and the troctolites are distinct by those in the dunites by lower Ni and higher concentrations of Mn and incompatible trace elements (Ti, Zr, Y and HREE). Fractional crystallization cannot reproduce the chemical variations of the olivines from the olivine-rich troctolites and the troctolites. In these rock-types, the olivines commonly show heterogeneous Ti, Zr, Y and HREE compositions, which produce variable Ti/Y and Zr/Y values. We correlate these olivine characteristics with events of reactive melt migration occurred during the formation of the primitive lower oceanic crust. We propose that the migrating melts formed at the mantle–crust transition via interaction with mantle peridotites during periods of low melt supply.