The origin of layered gabbros from the mid lower ocean crust, Hess Deep, East Pacific Rise

Abstract:

IODP Exp. 345 Holes U1415 I & J cored a ~30m thick unit of conspicuously layered gabbroic rocks from the lower plutonic crust at Hess Deep. These rocks likely come from >1500m below the dike gabbro transition and thus provide an unique opportunity to study the origin of layering and the formation of relatively deep, fast spread plutonic crust formed at the EPR. Here we report the initial results of a comprehensive high-resolution petrologic, geochemical and petrographic study of this unit, which focuses on a fairly continuous 1.5m long section recovered at Hole I. The rocks consist of opx-bearing olivine gabbro, olivine gabbro and gabbro and exhibit 1-10cm scale modal layering. Some layers host spectacular 2-3 cm diameter cpx oikocrysts encapsulating partially resorbed plagioclase laths. Downhole variations in mineral chemistry are complicated. Olivine, cpx and opx Mg#’s partly reflect equilibration and show a subtle metre-scale variation (1-2 Mg#), whereas, for example, plagioclase anorthite, and cpx TiO₂ contents reveal a more complicated 10-20 cm-scale variation (2-4 An, and 0.2 TiO₂). Mineral zonation, for all but Mg# in equilibrated olivine, is of higher magnitude than downhole variations in average mineral compositions. Trace element geochemistry reveals rather homogeneous plagioclase and opx compositions; however cpx exhibits variation at the mineral scale. Cpx shows an increased range of, and highest REE concentrations, in the more olivine rich, near cotectic, composition gabbros, whereas the more plagioclase rich, cumulates show no variation of, and low REE, concentrations.Plagioclase fabrics are moderate to weak and partially modally controlled, but the strength of the plagioclase crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO) varies dramatically, within the 1.5m core showing a significant part of the variation recorded by Oman ophiolite plutonic crust. Plagioclase shape preferred orientation and CPO match well suggesting that diffusion enabled compaction was not significant. Overall, our combined observations and the similarity of composition and textures to those found in the Rum layered mafic intrusion (Scotland); an intrusion built by multiple ~100m thick replenishments of magma, suggests that the studied layered sequence is best interpreted as having formed in a lower crustal sill.