The lower oceanic crust at ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge: The inside story

Abstract

Owing to the lack of persistent magma chamber and the complex interplay between magmatism and tectonism at slow- to ultraslow-spreading ridges, the likeliness of fractional crystallization being the predominant process of evolution of crustal magmas is weak. Here, we report a detailed petro-geochemical investigation from the lower crustal gabbroic rocks recovered from Hole U1473A in Atlantis Bank oceanic core complex, Southwest Indian Ridge that may potentially provide new insights on the dynamic accretion process at ultraslow-spreading ridge. Sampling the entire lithological spectrum encompassing a single geochemical cycle in this study permit us to probe the underlying magmatic processes in ultraslow-spreading lower crust. Grain-size variation is ubiquitously recorded in the gabbroic lithologies of Hole U1473A, where fine-grained intervals represent relatively evolved chemistry than the coarser domains. This suggests that, they were crystallized from a common genetic melt during different degrees of evolution. The forward geochemical modelling approach have not only affirmed the long-established theory of assimilation (of early mushes’ crystals)-fractional crystallization to be the key mechanism in lower crust formation, but also provided explanation for the restricted whole rock geochemical cluster observed throughout all the rock types. We demonstrate for the first time the relationship between the progressive modal mineralogical evolution with respect to the different assimilation/fractionation ratios (r). The observed trend has been successfully replicated for the experiments with high r values = 0.8–0.9, previously predicted from this region. Integrating all results, our study supports the model of lower crustal formation via reactive porous flow of the squeezed-out melt percolating throughout the cumulate pile and segregated into different horizons.