The role of subduction erosion in the generation of Andean and other convergent plate boundary arc magmas, the continental crust and mantle

Abstract

Subduction erosion, which occurs at all convergent plate boundaries associated with magmatic arcs formed on crystalline forearc basement, is an important process for chemical recycling, responsible globally for the transport of ~1.7 Armstrong Units (1 AU = 1 km3/yr) of continental crust back into the mantle. Along the central Andean convergent plate margin, where there is very little terrigenous sediment being supplied to the trench as a result of the arid conditions, the occurrence of mantle-derived olivine basalts with distinctive crustal isotopic characteristics (87Sr/86Sr ≥ 0.7050; εNd ≤ −2; εHf ≤ +2) correlates spatially and/or temporally with regions and/or episodes of high rates of subduction erosion, and a strong case can be made for the formation of these basalts to be due to incorporation into the subarc mantle wedge of tectonically eroded and subducted forearc continental crust. In other convergent plate boundary magmatic arcs, such as the South Sandwich and Aleutian Islands intra-oceanic arcs and the Central American and Trans-Mexican continental margin volcanic arcs, similar correlations have been demonstrated between regions and/or episodes of relatively rapid subduction erosion and the genesis of mafic arc magmas containing enhanced proportions of tectonically eroded and subducted crustal components that are chemically distinct from pelagic and/or terrigenous trench sediments. It has also been suggested that larger amounts of melts derived from tectonically eroded and subducted continental crust, rising as diapirs of buoyant low density subduction mélanges, react with mantle peridotite to form pyroxenite metasomatites that than melt to form andesites. The process of subduction erosion and mantle source region contamination with crustal components, which is supported by both isotopic and U-Pb zircon age data implying a fast and efficient connectivity between subduction inputs and magmatic outputs, is a powerful alternative to intra-crustal assimilation in the generation of andesites, and it negates the need for large amounts of mafic cumulates to form within and then be delaminated from the lower crust, as required by the basalt-input model of continental crustal growth. However, overall, some significant amount of subducted crust and sediment is neither underplated below the forearc wedge nor incorporated into convergent plate boundary arc magmas, but instead transported deeper into the mantle where it plays a role in the formation of isotopically enriched mantle reservoirs. To ignore or underestimate the significance of the recycling of tectonically eroded and subducted continental crust in the genesis of convergent plate boundary arc magmas, including andesites, and for the evolution of both the continental crust and mantle, is to be on the wrong side of history in the understanding of these topics.