Continuous eclogite melting and variable refertilisation in upwelling heterogeneous mantle.

ABSTRACT: Large-scale tectonic processes introduce a range of crustal lithologies into the Earth's mantle. These lithologies have been implicated as sources of compositional heterogeneity in mantle-derived magmas. The model being explored here assumes the presence of widely dispersed fragments of residual eclogite (derived from recycled oceanic crust), stretched and stirred by convection in the mantle. Here we show with an experimental study that these residual eclogites continuously melt during upwelling of such heterogeneous mantle and we characterize the melting reactions and compositional changes in the residue minerals. The chemical exchange between these partial melts and more refractory peridotite leads to a variably metasomatised mantle. Re-melting of these metasomatised peridotite lithologi

SUBMITTER: Rosenthal A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4135334 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature