Abstracts Earth and Environmental Sciences

Evolution of the lithosphere beneath Tasmania and Western Norway

by Eloise Ellen Beyer

Two suites of mantle-derived peridotites have been studied to evaluate the linkages between mantle geochemistry and crustal age in Proterozoic and Phanerozoic terrains.Spinel-bearing peridotite xenoliths entrained in Tertiary alkali basalts have been erupted through Proterozoic and Phanerozoic crust in northern Tasmania. The xenoliths can be divided into three major compositional groups. The first, and most widespread, group consists of spinel Iherzolites that are moderately fertile in terms of whole-rock Al₂O₃ and CaO contents and olivine Mg# and lie in, or adjacent to, the “oceanic peridotite trend”of Boyd (1989). The second group is less common and consists of harzburgites, which have depleted compositions and plot in the Proterozoic field on the olivine Mg# vs modalolivine diagram. The third group comprises highly fertile Iherzolites and is restricted to the northwestern localities. Modelling of compatible trace element abundances in clinopyroxene indicates that the fertile Tasmanian peridotites have experienced less than 5% (batch or fractional) partial melting in the spinel stability field while the highly fertile peridotites have experienced less than 2% melting. The depleted xenoliths require higher degrees of partial melting (8-15% fractional melting). Most Tasmanian xenoliths show evidence for cryptic metasomatism. Clinopyroxene trace element patterns show enrichment in the LREE, Sr, U and Th which can be modelled by simple mixing between moderately depleted (~5% melting) peridotite and 3-15% basalt. The depth to the crust-mantle boundary across northern Tasmania has been determined by extrapolating xenolith temperatures to the SE Australian geotherm. The CMB is well-defined at 31-32 km beneath much of northern Tasmania and coincides with Moho depths derived from wide-angle seismic surveys. The CMB is poorly constrained beneath northwestern Tasmania but may be as shallow as 26 km. Estimates of crustal thickness are complicated in the northwest by high heat Bow which would raise the local geotherm and thus raise the estimated depth to the crust-mantle boundary. Rare depleted xenoliths found at some localities in Tasmania may represent relics of ancient lithosphere preserved in the shallow lithosphere. This is supported by an Archean Re-Os sulfide age for a depleted xenolith from northeastern Tasmania. A Re-Osisochron age of 1.45±0.7 Ga for sulfides from a fertile xenolith from the same locality suggests that the region might be underlain in part by refertilised Proterozoic lithospheric mantle. The extensive occurrence of hot, fertile lithosphere beneath northern Tasmania suggests that there has been large-scale removal or refertilisation of the original depleted lithosphere. This is attributed to asthenosphere upwelling and lithosphere thinning during rifting between Australia and Antarctica. Mantle peridotites preserved in orogenic massifs in the Western Gneiss Region (WGR), Norway are thought to represent slices of lithospheric mantle tectonically emplaced into continental crust during subduction.…