Melt aggregation within the crust beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ridge: evidence from plagioclase and clinopyroxene major and trace element compositions

Abstract

Ocean Drilling Program Hole 923A, located on the western flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge south of the Kane Fracture Zone, recovered primitive gabbros that have mineral trace element compositions inconsistent with growth from a single parental melt. Plagioclase crystals commonly show embayed anorthitic cores overgrown by more albitic rims. Ion probe analyses of plagioclase cores and rims show consistent differences in trace element ratios, indicating variation in the trace element characteristics of their respective parental melts. This requires the existence of at least two distinct melt compositions within the crust during the generation of these gabbros. Melt compositions calculated to be parental to plagioclase cores are depleted in light rare earth elements, but enriched in yttrium, compared to basalts from this region of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which are normal mid-ocean ridge basalt (N-MORB). Clinopyroxene trace element compositions are similar to those predicted to be in equilibrium with N-MORB. However, primitive clinopyroxene crystals are much more magnesian than those produced in one-atmosphere experiments on N-MORB, suggesting that the major element composition of the melt was unlike N-MORB. These data require that the diverse array of melt compositions generated within the mantle beneath mid-ocean ridges are not always fully homogenised during melt extraction from the mantle and that the final stage of mixing can occur efficiently within crustal magma chambers. This has implications for the process of melt extraction from the mantle and the liquid line of descent of MORB.