The geochemistry of basalts from a back-arc spreading centre in the East Scotia Sea

Abstract

Rapid sea floor spreading has taken place over the last 8 Myr behind the South Sandwich island arc, producing a regular set of magnetic lineations. Suites of fresh basalts have been dredged from four widely separated localities along the spreading axis. Dredges 20 and 23 yielded sub-alkaline olivine tholeiites, dredge 22 recovered vesicular tholeiites with minor normative olivine, while dredge 24 contained a fractionated suite of highly vesicular quartz-normative basalts with higher Fe Mg . The concentrations of the incompatible elements Ti, P, Zr, Hf, Nb, Ta, Y and the REE increase systematically from dredge 24 through dredges 22 and 20 to dredge 23 and there is a comparable increase in Ce N Yb N . Quantitative modelling suggests that all the basalts can be derived from an essentially similar mantle source (with respect to these elements) through varying degrees of partial melting, but involving some residual clinopyroxene. Basalts from dredge 24 have unusually low concentrations of Ti, P, Zr, Nb, Y, REE and Ni, similar to the values in arc tholeiites, and the more primitive dredge 24 liquids seem to have been generated through high degrees of partial melting (~ 30%) leaving a dunitic residue. Transitional arc tholeiite characteristics are also apparent in the relatively high K, Rb, Ba contents and 87Sr 86Sr ratios of dredge 24 and 22 basalts, though Nd isotope ratios are uniform. It is considered that fluids derived from the dehydrating subducted slab may have locally penetrated the source regions of the back-arc basalts, carrying K, Rb, Ba and seawater-enriched 87Sr, and producing conditions of magma generation similar to that of arc tholeiites. However, it is unlikely that the sources for these and other marginal basin basalts differ fundamentally from the range of mantle sources feeding normal mid-ocean ridges.