Ophiolites and oceanic plateau remnants (greenstones) in Japan and Far East Russia

In Japan, an older ophiolite thrust onto younger ophiolite with tectonic intercalation of accreted oceanic sediments (chert, limestone, shale and sandstone forming _gocean plate stratigraphy_h deposited on the basaltic basement) or their high-P/T metamorphosed varieties. For example, the Yakuno ophiolite (SW Japan) of early Permian igneous age and supra-subduction zone (SSZ) origin (Ichiyama & Ishiwatari, Island Arc, 13, 157-) is tectonically underlain by the Ultra-Tamba nappe (chert, shale, sandstone) accreted in Late Permian, which is further underlain by the Tamba nappes (greenstone, chert, limestone, shale and sandstone) accreted in Jurassic. Major occurrence of the greenstones (mainly Permian) in the Upper Tamba nappe (consisting of 3 sub-nappes) is more than 1 km thick intact sheet of >200 km extension forming the structurally basal part of each sub-nappe, originated in an oceanic edifice composed of pillow lava, massive lava, hyaloclastite and dikes (_gBasal TypEh). Another minor occurrence is greenstone fragments of a few cm to 100 m size in the muddy matrix (_gMixed TypEh), constituting structurally upper part of each sub-nappe. The Basal Type greenstones show uniform E-MORB affinity, but the Mixed Type ones show diverse features such as N-MORB, OIT and OIA. This clear correlation between the occurrence of greenstones and their chemistries suggests the accretion of thick crust of oceanic plateau (E-MORB) to make Basal Type greenstones and the accretion of thin normal oceanic crust (N-MORB) with disseminated small seamounts (OIT and OIA) to make Mixed Type greenstones (Koizumi & Ishiwatari, Island Arc, in submission.). We discovered HFSE-rich picrite (meimechite) sills and hyaloclastites as well as ferropicrite and picritic ferrobasalt dikes emplaced in the Basal Type greenstones and its chert-dolomite cover of Late Permian age. Zr/Y and Ti/Al signatures of these ultramafic volcanic rocks are intermediate between Polynesian picrites and Siberian meimechites, suggesting their origin by deep (4-5 GPa) partial melting of a superplume (Ichiyama & Ishiwatari, 2005; CMP, 149, 373-; Lithos, in submission.). The Yakuno ophiolite and the Tamba greenstone thus represent coeval but unrelated SSZ and oceanic magmatisms, respectively, in the same Permian time. The Jurassic superplume-related volcanic rocks are also reported from Hokkaido (Japan) and Sakhalin (Russia), and Jurassic meimechite lavas and related Alaskan-type zoned ultramafic plutons are reported from Primorye (Russia), but their age of accretion is also Late Jurassic. The Jurassic ophiolites in Hokkaido and Sakhalin are characterized by unusually depleted harzburgite (Spinel Cr#80-90), indicating very high degree of melting (Ishiwatari et al. GSL Spec. Publ. 218, 597-). These facts suggests that the superplume was placed beneath the subduction zone (Ishiwatari & Ichiyama, 2004; Int. Geol. Rev., 46, 316-), and facilitated plate convergence and SSZ magmatism. This study provides a new evidence for Permian oceanic superplume magmatism that is coeval with Siberian and Emeishan LIPs, and postulates possibility of superplume-SSZ interaction in Jurassic NW Pacific margin.