Petrology of the Motaghairat mafic–ultramafic complex, Eastern Desert, Egypt: A high-Mg post-collisional extension-related layered intrusion

Abstract

The geodynamic settings of the Precambrian mafic–ultramafic complexes in the Eastern Desert of Egypt have important bearing on understanding the geotectonic evolution of the Arabian Nubian Shield. We present a detailed petrological study on a layered mafic–ultramafic intrusion that is located at the contact between the Precambrian continental crust and the Miocene Red Sea oceanic crust. The Motaghairat layered intrusion consists of basal lherzolite, orthopyroxenite, troctolite, olivine gabbro and anorthosite on the top. Variations in modal mineralogy and mineral chemistry along with the chemical composition of these units suggest their derivation from a common high-Mg tholeiitic parent melt through fractional crystallization processes. The parental magma was derived from a metasomatised mantle source. The primitive mantle-normalized patterns of the calculated melts exhibit enrichment in U relative to Th and Ba relative LREE which indicate that the enriched lithospheric mantle source was metasomatised by fluids derived from a subducted oceanic crust rather than by a sediment melt. Geological and petrological evidences suggest that the layered Motaghairat intrusion was emplaced during post-orogenic extension following subduction break-off and lithospheric delamination after the collision between the amalgamated island arc terranes and the Saharan Metacraton. The heat source required to melt the metasomatised lithospheric mantle was derived from the upwelling of hot asthenosphere after the subduction-break-off.