Water enrichment in the mid-ocean ridge by recycling of mantle wedge residue

Abstract

Trace amounts of water in the sub-oceanic mantle play crucial role in the vigor of mantle convection and the production of oceanic crust, and other many geodynamic processes. Consequently, the cycling of H2O between the mantle and the exosphere in the mantle is one of the critical processes governing Earth's geodynamical and geochemical evolution. While the deep cycling of altered oceanic lithosphere was considered as the main way to replenish the water in oceanic upper mantle, the significance of the arc mantle wedge after the genesis of arc magmatism dragged down by the subducting slab concomitantly has been not well constrained. Here, we report that fresh depleted basaltic glasses from the ultraslow-spreading Southwestern Indian Ridge (SWIR), located far from any recent subduction zones, show unusually high H2O/Ce ratios (>600), water contents and heavy hydrogen isotopic compositions. These results could be best explained by recycling of water through melting of a residual hydrous mantle wedge after early melt extraction. Considering that such mantle wedges residue dragged down to the deeper mantle could occupy a volume one order of magnitude larger than that of the subducted lithosphere in the earth history, we suggest that the potential role of such shallow recycling should be considered in studies of global water recycling and the origin of water in the upper asthenosphere.