Two contrasting styles of interaction between basic magmas and continental crust in the British Tertiary Volcanic Province

Abstract

Some of the magmas that were extruded to form the 59 Ma, early, plateau‐forming, basalt‐dominated floods in the British Tertiary Volcanic Province mixed with small amounts of sialic melt during their uprise through the continental crust, while others underwent concomitant fractional crystallization and crustal assimilation. Magma batches of the first group originated in the uppermost asthenosphere and mostly ponded at the Moho, where they crystallized fractionally to form a basalt‐benmoreite suite. The major element compositions of members of this series show that they underwent negligible further fractional crystallization between the Moho and the surface. Nevertheless, they paused long enough during their uprise to dissolve their high‐pressure phenocrysts and, in many cases, to mix with small amounts of acid melt from lower crustal, granulite‐facies, Archaean Lewisian leucogneisses. Basalts and tholeiitic andesites of the second group outcrop locally at the base of the lava piles in Mull and Skye. Their major element compositions show that they equilibrated within the upper third of the crust, under conditions approximating to anhydrous 1‐atm cotectic equilibria. Most of these lavas are in SW Mull, where Proterozoic Moine metasediments form the uppermost crust. The major and trace element and isotopic compositions of the SW Mull basal lavas show that they assimilated substantial amounts of Moine metasediments progressively as they fractionated within the upper crust. Pb isotope data reveal that, before their final upper crust evolution, some of the SW Mull basal lavas had already mixed with small amounts of lower crust acid melts.