The roles of partial melting of metasomatised mantle, magma mixing at continental crust level and fractionation in calc-alkaline minette genesis, SE Spain

Abstract

ABSTRACT Detailed textural and compositional study of calc-alkaline lamprophyres and minettes from Zeneta, SE Spain Neogene Volcanic Province (NVP) are used to unravel the magma sources and differentiation processes involved in their formation. The presence of xenocrysts of various origins indicates a hybrid nature involving mantle-derived alkaline lamproitic and continental crust-derived granitic parental magmas. A new U-Th-Pb zircon age of Zeneta minettes allows contextualizing their generation in time and space during regional lamproite magma intrusion and crustal anatexis in the NVP. Interaction and mixing of these compositionally contrasted magmas resulted in the formation of hybrid calc-alkaline lamprophyre minette. This process is reflected by the phases that crystallized from the hybrid magma, particularly phlogopite, and by the whole-rock composition of the less fractionated rocks. The calculated contribution of lamproitic and crustal-derived magma end-members in minette formation are 30–40% and 60–70%, respectively. Mixing of end-member magmas of contrasting rheological properties was possible only in a calculated thermal-window of 1025–1125°C, after cooling of intruding lamproitic magma and heating of host granitic anatectic region. The calculated thermal window fits with the estimated rheological properties of Zeneta minettes and the crystallization temperature of early minette-derived phlogopite. Furthermore, fractional crystallization was identified for the first time in the Zeneta minettes, based on the observed whole-rock line of descent from the less evolved mixed magmas through intermediate to felsic minettes and associated textural and compositional features of late crystallized phases. Polytope Vector Analysis allowed an integrated quantitative characterization of magma differentiation, including magma mixing and subsequent fractional crystallization. The identification of mixing and fractionation processes in calc-alkaline minettes genesis, which otherwise does not show spatial and temporal association in the field with granitic bodies, opens a new scenario to be considered in understanding the petrogenesis of these rocks.