Thermal History of an Oceanic Core Complex, Atlantis Bank, Southwest Indian Ridge: Evidence for Hydrothermal Activity 2.6 Myr Off-Axis

We report 26 new (U-Th)/He zircon dates from the Atlantis Bank Oceanic Core Complex (OCC), Southwest Indian Ridge. The low (~200 °C) closure temperature of the (U-Th)/He isotopic system, together with higher temperature (850 °C) crystallization ages from U-Pb zircon dating, allow us to constrain the timescales and rates of lower crustal cooling in oceanic crust. Samples from the detachment fault surface exposed at the sea floor, indicate that the denuded crust cooled rapidly through 200 °C in <1 Myr, yielding mean cooling rates >1200 °C/Myr, consistent with existing models for cooling of oceanic crust. However, samples collected along post-detachment, N-S- and E-W-trending fault scarps record (U-Th)/He ages averaging 2.6 Myr younger than their corresponding igneous crystallization ages. These ages are inconsistent with steady-state conductive cooling models for lower oceanic crust and cannot be explained by simple monotonic cooling. Instead, they record cooling through 200 °C when the crust was well outside the rift valley, ~36 km off-axis assuming a half spreading rate of 14km/Myr. These samples display extensive post-crystallization greenschist-facies alteration and contain metamorphic mineral assemblages of chlorite + actinolite ± hornblende ± epidote ± serpentine ± clay, consistent with hydrothermal alteration. Therefore, we suggest that these anomalously young (U-Th)/He zircon ages record localized thermal heating events associated with high- temperature (>300 °C) hydrothermal fluid flow along transform-parallel and transform-normal faults that were active outside the rift valley during transtension along the bounding Atlantis II transform fault. A significant component of the heat driving hydrothermal fluid flow may have been derived from underplated mafic magmas emplaced during transtension. The young (U-Th)/He ages therefore delimit zones of hydrothermal upflow, and record evidence of protracted hydrothermal circulation up to ~3 Myr off-axis at the Atlantis Bank OCC.