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Trace element characteristics of partial melts produced by melting of metabasalts at high pressures: Constraints on the formation condition of adakitic melts

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Abstract

Experiments were conducted on a natural basalt (with 5 wt.% added H2O) at 1.0–2.5 GPa and 900–1100°C. Experimental products include partial melts (quenched glasses) + residual mineral assemblages of amphibolite or eclogite. Electron microprobe and LAM-ICP-MS were used to determine major and trace element compositions of these quenched melts, respectively. Major element compositions of all the melts are tonalitic-trondhjemitic, similar to adakite. Their trace element characteristics are controlled by coexisting residual minerals. Signatures of adakite such as high Sr/Y, low HREE and negative Nb-Ta anomaly, etc. are present only in the melts coexisting with residual assemblages containing rutile and garnet (rutile-bearing eclogite or rutile-bearing amphibole-eclogite). Garnet leads to HREE depletion in melts, whereas rutile controls Nb and Ta partitioning during the partial melting and causes negative Nb-Ta anomaly in melts. Therefore, in addition to garnet, rutile is also a necessary residual phase during the generation of adakite or TTG magmas to account for the negative Nb-Ta anomaly of the magmas. The depth for the generation of adakite/TTG magmas via melting of metabasalt must be more than about 50 km based on the approximate 1.5 GPa minimum-pressure for rutile stability in the partial melting field of hydrous basalt.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Metallogenic Dynamics, Chinese Academy of Sciences at Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Xiong Xiaolin, Wu Jinhua & Cai Zhiyong

  2. GEMOC National Key Centre, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    J. Adam, T. H. Green & Niu Hecai

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  1. Xiong Xiaolin
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  2. J. Adam
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  3. T. H. Green
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  4. Niu Hecai
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  6. Cai Zhiyong
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Correspondence to Xiong Xiaolin.

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Xiong, X., Adam, J., Green, T.H. et al. Trace element characteristics of partial melts produced by melting of metabasalts at high pressures: Constraints on the formation condition of adakitic melts. SCI CHINA SER D 49, 915–925 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-006-0915-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-006-0915-2

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