Primary melt from Sannome-gata volcano, NE Japan arc: constraints on generation conditions of rear-arc magmas

Abstract

The conditions under which rear-arc magmas are generated were estimated using primary basalts from the Sannome-gata volcano, located in the rear of the NE Japan arc. Scoriae from the volcano occur with abundant crustal and mantle xenoliths, suggesting that the magma ascended rapidly from the upper mantle. The scoriae show significant variations in their whole-rock compositions (7.9–11.1 wt% MgO). High-MgO scoriae (MgO > ~9.5 wt%) have mostly homogeneous 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.70318–0.70320), whereas low-MgO scoriae (MgO 0.70327); ratios tend to increase with decreasing MgO content. The high-MgO scoriae are aphyric, containing ~5 vol% olivine microphenocrysts with Mg# [100 × Mg/(Mg + Fe2+)] of up to 90. In contrast, the low-MgO scoriae have crustal xenocrysts of plagioclase, alkali feldspar, and quartz, and the mineralogic modes correlate negatively with whole-rock MgO content. On the basis of these observations, it is inferred that the high-MgO scoriae represent primary or near-primary melts, while the low-MgO scoriae underwent considerable interaction with the crust. Using thermodynamic analysis of the observed petrological features of the high-MgO scoriae, the eruption temperature of the magmas was constrained to 1,160–1,220 °C. Given that the source mantle was depleted MORB-source mantle, the primary magma was plausibly generated by ~7 % melting of a garnet-bearing spinel peridotite; taking this into consideration, and considering the constraints of multi-component thermodynamics, we estimated that the primary Sannome-gata magma was generated in the source mantle with 0.5–0.6 wt% H2O at 1,220–1,230 °C and at ~1.8 GPa, and that the H2O content of the primary magma was 6–7 wt%. The rear-arc Sannome-gata magma was generated by a lower degree of melting of the mantle at greater depths and lower temperatures than the frontal-arc magma from the Iwate volcano, which was also estimated to be generated by ~15 % melting of the source mantle with 0.6–0.7 wt% H2O at ~1,250 °C and at ~1.3 GPa.