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Dihedral angle measurements and infiltration property of SiO2-rich melts in mantle peridotite assemblages

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Abstract

Petrological and experimental studies demonstrated that nepheline-normative, SiO2-rich melts can be present in the upper mantle at pressures ≤1.5 GPa. To evaluate the role of such melts in mantle processes and magma genesis, we carried out two types of experiments: (1) melt distribution experiments to characterize the grain-scale distribution of a small fraction of typical SiO2-rich mantle melt (SRMM) in polycrystalline olivine (Ol) at 1,180°C, 1.2 GPa; and (2) an infiltration experiment to test the ability of SRMM to impregnate and metasomatise neighbouring non-molten mantle rocks. The median dihedral angles at Ol-Ol-SRMM contacts are equal to ≈50°, implying that melt should be interconnected at all melt fractions. Complications arise, however, in the investigated system because Ol–liquid interfacial energy is anisotropic, and we estimate that the connectivity threshold in the SRMM–Ol system is ≈0.3 vol%. Regarding the very low volume fraction of SRMM in peridotites, we conclude that these melts either occur as isolated pockets or form a network of grain edge channels with a low degree of connectivity due to a large number of dry grain edges. Even in the case where an interconnected network exists, their large viscosities should prohibit the extraction of SRMM from peridotite sources. The infiltration experiment also points to a very reduced mobility of SRMM in the upper mantle. In this experiment, a slice of synthetic dunite was immersed into a magma reservoir made of 60 wt% SRMM+40 wt% Ol, and subjected to 1,180°C-1.2 GPa for 113 h: despite this long duration, the SiO2-rich liquid was unable to infiltrate measurably the dunite. Our experiments do not support the hypothesis that SRMM represent agents of mantle metasomatism.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Ariel Provost for his mass-balance program, Jean-Luc Devidal, Michelle Veschambre, François Faure, and Bertrand Devouard for technical help and advice, and Tahar Hammouda for helpful comments. Olgeir Sigmarsson provided the basalt from Lanzarote. This manuscript was improved by the constructive reviews of Bruce Watson and an anonymous reviewer. The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by INSU-CNRS. Work supported in part by the European Community’s Human Potential Program under contract HPRN-CT-2002-00211, (Euromelt). Contribution INSU-CNRS no. 363.

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  1. Laboratoire “Magmas et Volcans”, OPGC-Université Blaise Pascal-CNRS, 5 rue Kessler, 63038, Clermont-Ferrand, France

    Jérôme Maumus, Didier Laporte & Pierre Schiano

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  1. Jérôme Maumus
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  2. Didier Laporte
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Correspondence to Jérôme Maumus.

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Maumus, J., Laporte, D. & Schiano, P. Dihedral angle measurements and infiltration property of SiO2-rich melts in mantle peridotite assemblages. Contrib Mineral Petrol 148, 1–12 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00410-004-0595-x

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