Forward Analyses of Dehydration Reactions in Mafic Rocks Along the P-T Trajectories of the Subducting Slabs

Fluids in the subduction zone play an important role in magmatism, metamorphism, and mechanical processes involving seismic activity. Additionally, recent geophysical researches found low-frequency tremors which may be related to the movement of fluid (Obara, 2002) and a zone of high Poisson_fs ratio which reflects high pore fluid pressure (Kodaira et al.,2004) in the Southwest Japan fore-arc. It is widely accepted that these fluids are supplied by the dehydration of hydrous metamorphic minerals in the subducting oceanic plate. Although many previous studies attempted to estimate the water content of the subducting oceanic crust experimentally and theoretically (e.g., Schmidt and Poli, 1998; Hacker et al., 2003), there have been no studies which quantify the continuous dehydration reactions in detail. The aim of this study is to quantify the progress of the continuous dehydration reactions of mafic rocks in the condition of greenschist facies, corresponding to low-intermediate depth (10-50km) of warm subduction zone. We use the differential thermodynamics (Spear 1993) which include mass balance to predict the continuous metamorphic reaction history of mafic rocks along the P-T trajectory of the subducting slab. With fixed bulk chemical composition the thermodynamic system is divariant, as specified in Duhem_fs theorem. In differential thermodynamics, applying a series of changes in pressure and temperature (ΔP and ΔT, respectively) from initial conditions (P0, T0, X0s, M0s), we can trace ΔXs and ΔMs, that is, the progress (history) of the metamorphic reactions along the arbitrary P-T trajectory (Thermodynamic forward modeling). According to Okamoto and Toriumi, 2001, we modeled the greenschist/ blueschist/ (epidote -) amphibolite assemblage of mafic rocks, which consist of the following phases: Amphibole ± Epidote ± Chlorite + Plagioclase + Quartz + Fluid (H2O), in the system of Na2O - CaO - MgO - FeO - Fe2O3 - Al2O3 - SiO2 - H2O. The reference compositions and modes of minerals were assumed according to the natural sample of greenschist which has MORB-like bulk composition (Hacker et al. 2003). The reference temperature and pressure were set to be 300°C, 0.3GPa. Calculations were performed along the P-T paths of the Southwest Japan (4MPa/°C) and the Cape Mendocino (the North California, 2MPa/°C) predicted by Yamasaki and Seno, 2003. As a result, the water production rates have the peak depths at the boundary between the greenschist facies and the epidote-amphibolite facies in the Southwest Japan, and at the boundary between the greenschist facies and the amphibolite facies in the Cape Mendocino, respectively. Chlorite decomposition is the main dehydration reaction. These peak depths correspond to the zone of low frequency tremors, high Poisson_fs ratio and active seismicity (30-50km) in the Southwest Japan, and active seismicity (10-20km) in the Cape Mendocino, respectively.