Adakitic magmas: modern analogues of Archaean granitoids

An Outline of the precambrian evolution of the baltic shield

SUMMARY Plate motions relative to the hotspots over the past 4 to 7 Myr are investigated with a goal of determining the shortest time interval over which reliable volcanic propagation rates and segment trends can be estimated. The rate and trend uncertainties are objectively determined from the dispersion of volcano age and of volcano location and are used to test the mutual consistency of the trends and rates. Ten hotspot data sets are constructed from overlapping time intervals with various durations and starting times. Our preferred hotspot data set, HS3, consists of two volcanic propagation rates and eleven segment trends from four plates. It averages plate motion over the past ≈5.8 Myr, which is almost twice the length of time (3.2 Myr) over which the NUVEL-1A global set of relative plate angular velocities is estimated. HS3-NUVEL1A, our preferred set of angular velocities of 15 plates relative to the hotspots, was constructed from the HS3 data set while constraining the relative plate angular velocities to consistency with NUVEL-1A. No hotspots are in significant relative motion, but the 95 per cent confidence limit on motion is typically ±20 to ±40 km Myr −1 and ranges up to ±145 km Myr −1 . The uncertainties of the new angular velocities of plates relative to the hotspots are smaller than those of previously published HS2-NUVEL1 (Gripp & Gordon 1990), while being averaged over a shorter and much more uniform time interval. Nine of the fourteen HS2-NUVEL1 angular velocities lie outside the 95 per cent confidence region of the corresponding HS3NUVEL1A angular velocity, while all fourteen of the HS3-NUVEL1A angular velocities lie inside the 95 per cent confidence region of the corresponding HS2-NUVEL1 angular velocity. The HS2-NUVEL1 Pacific Plate angular velocity lies inside the 95 per cent confidence region of the HS3-NUVEL1A Pacific Plate angular velocity, but the 0 to 3 Ma Pacific Plate angular velocity of Wessel & Kroenke (1997) lies far outside the confidence region. We show that the change in trend of the Hawaiian hotspot over the past 2 to 3 Myr has no counterpart on other chains and therefore provides no basis for inferring a change in Pacific Plate motion relative to global hotspots. The current angular velocity of the Pacific Plate can be shown to differ from the average over the past 47 Myr in rate but not in orientation, with the current rotation being about 50 per cent faster (1.06 ± 0.10 deg Myr −1 ) than the average (0.70 deg Myr −1 ) since the 47-Myr-old bend in the Hawaiian‐Emperor chain.

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Young tracks of hotspots and current plate velocities

High Sr/Y and La/Yb ratios: The meaning of the “adakitic signature”

Forty years of TTG research

Trace element geochemistry and petrogenesis of Finnish greenstone belts.

U-Pb and Rb-Sr systematics of the Suomussalmi Archean greenstone belt (Eastern Finland)

The scale and geometry of chemical and isotopic heterogeneities in the source of plumes have important scientific implications on the nature, composition and origin of plumes and on the dynamics of mantle mixing over time. Here, we address these issues through the study of Marquesas Islands, one of the Archipelagoes in Polynesia. We present new Sr, Nd, Pb, Hf isotopes as well as trace element data on lavas from several Marquesas Islands and demonstrate that this archipelago consists of two adjacent and distinct rows of islands with significantly different isotopic compositions. For the entire 5.5 Ma construction period, the northern islands, hereafter called the Ua Huka group, has had systematically higher 87Sr/86Sr and lower 206Pb/204Pb ratios than the southern Fatu Hiva group at any given 143Nd/144Nd value. The shape and curvature of mixing arrays preclude the ambient depleted MORB mantle as one of the mixing end-members. We believe therefore that the entire isotopic heterogeneity originates in the plume itself. We suggest that the two Marquesas isotopic stripes originate from partial melting of two adjacent filaments contained in small plumes or "plumelets" that came from a large dome structure located deep in the mantle under Polynesia. Low-degree partial melting under Marquesas and other "weak" Polynesian hot spot chains (Pitcairn-Gambier, Austral-Cook, Society) sample small areas of the dome and preserve source heterogeneities. In contrast, more productive hot spots build up large islands such as Big Island in Hawaii or Reunion Island, and the higher degrees of melting blur the isotopic variability of the plume source.

https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00720199/document

The size of plume heterogeneities constrained by Marquesas isotopic stripes

On the basis of the first systematic mapping of Ua Pou, long known for its exceptionally abundant phonolites, we estimate that these rocks cover 65% of the surface of the island whereas mafic lavas cover 27% and intermediate ones 8%. The silica-undersaturated suite was erupted in a restricted time span (2 9–2 35Myr), following the emplacement of tholeiites derived from a young HIMU-type source at c. 4Ma. Primitive basanites, derived from a heterogeneous mantle source with a dominant EM II HIMU signature, represent likely parental magmas. The series is characterized by a Daly gap defined by a lack of phonotephrites. We consider that the most likely model for the origin of evolved lavas is partial melting at depth of primitive basanites, leaving an amphibole-rich residuum and producing tephriphonolitic magmas. These tephriphonolitic magmas may have evolved by closed-system fractional crystallization towards Group A phonolites. Three other groups of phonolites could have been derived from tephriphonolitic magmas by open-system fractional crystallization processes, characterized respectively by seawater contamination (Group B), assimilation of nepheline syenite-type materials (Group C) and extreme fractionation coupled with assimilation of the underlying oceanic crust (Group D). The prominence of evolved lavas is a consequence of their origin from partial melting of mafic precursors followed by crustal contamination.

Origin of Exceptionally Abundant Phonolites on Ua Pou Island (Marquesas, French Polynesia): Partial Melting of Basanites Followed by Crustal Contamination

New K-Ar dates of volcanic rocks from five of the nine islands of the Society Archipelago (Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, Bora Bora and Maupiti), confirm a Pacific plate velocity of around 11 cm/a during the last 4.3 m.y. These new data allow us to analyse the age-distance relationship along the chain and to evaluate possible temporal variations in the activity of the Society hotspot. A clear increase of ages is observed along the linear chain away from the present Society hotspot location. The time-space relationship between Taiarapu, Tahiti-Nui and Moorea can be explained by a simple hotspot model. Nevertheless, the simple fixed hotspot model assuming constant Pacific plate velocity may need adjustments to fully explain the age progression along the Archipelago. The slight departures from a linear age distribution can be explained by changes in Pacific plate motion which occurred at 5 and 3 Ma. In addition, the contemporaneous magmatic activities in the pairs Bora-Bora/Tahaa, Raiatea/Huahine, Maiao/Moorea require additional lithospheric control on magma transport. Combined with the hotspot activity, lithospheric loading may have produced extension and triggered volcanism along already existing fractures linking paired islands.

The most likely model for the Society chain, proposed by McNutt [1998], involves a plume originating from a wide deep thermally anomalous zone (the Pacific Superswell) as a rising diapir (hotspot of secondary type according to the classification of Courtillot et al. [2003]). It melted during ascent and ponded beneath the Pacific plate to form short linear island chains showing rather good age vs. distance correlations.

Sylvain Blais

Papers

Trace element geochemistry and petrogenesis of Finnish greenstone belts.

U-Pb and Rb-Sr systematics of the Suomussalmi Archean greenstone belt (Eastern Finland)

The size of plume heterogeneities constrained by Marquesas isotopic stripes

Origin of Exceptionally Abundant Phonolites on Ua Pou Island (Marquesas, French Polynesia): Partial Melting of Basanites Followed by Crustal Contamination

Age progression along the Society hotspot chain (French Polynesia) based on new unspiked K-Ar ages