Evidence for intense hydrothermal alteration associated with flood basalt volcanism during the birth of the Azores Plateau
Abstract
A stratigraphic section comprising >1000 m of upper crust in the Princess Alice Bank (PAB) of the western Azores Plateau was sampled during RV Meteor cruise M128 in July of 2016, using the ROV MARUM Quest 4000m. Twenty-two samples were recovered between 2484 and 1439 m water depth from the southfacing footwall of the Master fault bounding a prominent NW-SE striking rift zone within the PAB. Our geochemical and petrographic results show that virtually all samples are pervasively altered. The deeper part of the section (up to 1750 m water depth) was altered under greenschist-facies conditions to assemblages that include epidote, chlorite, albite, titanite, and actinolite. These rocks show 87Sr/86Sr values between 0.7036 and 0.7050. The topmost section was altered under lower metamorphic grades to chlorite/smectite-quartz-anatase. These rocks show severe losses of Ca and Sr, and gains in Mg, Li, and B, with 87Sr/86Sr ratios as high as 0.708. These geochemical signatures indicate an intensity of hydrothermal exchange between seawater and crust that is unmatched by any in situ section of upper ocean crust sampled by ocean drilling to date. Oxygen isotope data for epidote-calcite veins indicate temperatures of 250-300°C. Later quartz gives about 200°C. The implications of the intense hydrothermal alteration for crust-seawater exchange budgets can be evaluated in the light of the geological evolution of the PAB. Based on immobile element ratios of whole rocks and REE characteristics of relict clinopyroxene in the only incompletely altered sample, an E-type MORB primary composition of the basalts can be reconstructed. Our data suggest that the degrees of mantle melting were much higher than during extrusion of the <4 Ma old alkali-basalts recovered from the top of PAB (Beier et al., 2015, doi:10.1130/2015.2511(02)), and even higher than modern MORB at the adjacent mid-Atlantic Ridge. These results lead us to suggest that the deeper sections of the PAB formed during the initial stages of flood basalt activity. The extreme hydrothermal alteration may hence be directly linked to the prolonged magmatic period during which excess melting produced a 13-km thick igneous crust. Our results indicate that marine plateau-forming events may cause transient highs in hydrothermal flux rates.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFM.V43D0564B
- Keywords:
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- 0414 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1034 Hydrothermal systems;
- GEOCHEMISTRY;
- 1037 Magma genesis and partial melting;
- GEOCHEMISTRY;
- 3614 Mid-oceanic ridge processes;
- MINERALOGY AND PETROLOGY