Geochemistry of ODP Leg 125 peridotites

Trace element analyses (first-series transition elements, Ti, Rb, Sr, Zr, Y, Nb, and REE) were carried out on whole rocks and minerals from 10 peridotite samples from both Conical Seamount in the Mariana forearc and Torishima Forearc Seamount in the Izu-Bonin forearc using a combination of XRF, ID-MS, ICP-MS, and ion microprobe. The concentrations of incompatible trace elements are generally low, reflecting the highly residual nature of the peridotites and their low clinopyroxene content (<2%). Chondrite-normalized REE patterns show extreme U shapes with (La/Sm)n ratios in the range of 5.03-250.0 and (Sm/Yb)n ratios in the range of 0.05-0.25; several samples show possible small positive Eu anomalies. LREE enrichment is common to both seamounts, although the peridotites from Conical Seamount have higher (La/Ce)n ratios on extended chondrite-normalized plots, in which both REEs and other trace elements are organized according to their incompatibility with respect to a harzburgitic mantle. Comparison with abyssal peridotite patterns suggests that the LREEs, Rb, Nb, Sr, Sm, and Eu are all enriched in the Leg 125 peridotites, but Ti and the HREEs exhibit no obvious enrichment. The peridotites also give positive anomalies for Zr and Sr relative to their neighboring REEs. Covariation diagrams based on clinopyroxene data show that Ti and the HREEs plot on an extension of an abyssal peridotite trend to more residual compositions. However, the LREEs, Rb, Sr, Sm, and Eu are displaced off this trend toward higher values, suggesting that these elements were introduced during an enrichment event. The axis of dispersion on these plots further suggests that enrichment took place during or after melting and thus was not a characteristic of the lithosphere before subduction. Compared with boninites sampled from the Izu-Bonin-Mariana forearc, the peridotites are significantly more enriched in LREEs. Modeling of the melting process indicates that if they represent the most depleted residues of the melting events that generated forearc boninites they must have experienced subsolidus enrichment in these elements, as well as in Rb, Sr, Zr, Nb, Sm, and Eu. The lack of any correlation with the degree of serpentinization suggests that low-temperature fluids were not the prime cause of enrichment. The enrichment in the high-field-strength elements also suggests that at least some of this enrichment may have involved melts rather than aqueous fluids. Moreover, the presence of the hydrous minerals magnesio-hornblende and tremolite and the common resorption of orthopyroxene indicate that this high-temperature peridotite-fluid interaction may have taken place in a water-rich environment in the forearc following the melting event that produced the boninites. The peridotites from Leg 125 may therefore contain a record of an important flux of elements into the mantle wedge during the initial formation of forearc lithosphere. Ophiolitic peridotites with these characteristics have not yet been reported, perhaps because the precise equivalents to the serpentinite seamounts have not been analyzed.

Location, intervals and thickness of Cretaceous sections in Indian Ocean DSDP and ODP sites (Table 2)

The Indian Ocean covers approximately 73.5 * 10**6 km**3 from 25°N to 67°S and from 20° to 120°E. Several legs of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) and the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) have operated in its waters, many penetrating the Cretaceous. Most of the scientific drill sites are DSDP related and thus pre-dated modern biostratigraphic conventions. Foraminifers and calcareous nannoplankton were by far the dominant fossil groups studied in the earlier work, supplemented occasionally by studies of other fossil groups, The results of the Ocean Drilling Project phase are yet too young to be fully integrated but have been based on a broader range of techniques and fossil groups. During most of the Cretaceous, the proto-Indian Ocean basin lay in middle to high latitudes. Thus, it is unrealistic to expect successful routine application of low-latitude zonations. No planktonic foraminifer zonal scheme has been developed for the Indian Ocean basin for several reasons. There are no sections with complete or even significant partial sections to allow development of such a zonation. Carbonate compensation depth (CCD) effects have been marked in most sections, and significant intervals are devoid of planktonic foraminifers. The Indian Ocean now covers a great latitudinal range from tropics to polar regions and, at first glance, no scheme can be expected to be applicable over that entire range. In the Cretaceous the area was much smaller, though expanding progressively, and the paleolatitude range was quite small. Calcareous nannoplankton have proved valuable in dating Indian Ocean Cretaceous sediments and have, perhaps in contrast with the foraminifers, been consistently a more reliable means of applying zonal schemes developed elsewhere. For the Albian-Aptian, zonations based on well-known benthic foraminifer lineages (Scheibnerova, 1974) have been useful when nothing else was available or effective. Palynology has been used little, but where used, has proved excellent. It has the added value of providing valuable information on nearby terrestrial vegetation as the fossils were resistant to dissolution. Normally, when different fossil groups have been applied to a section, the results have been compatible or compatible to an acceptable degree. There are a few instances where incompatibility is noteworthy, and Site 263 is a classic example, as even two calcareous nannoplankton studies show irreconcilable differences here. All groups gave different results, but one benthic foraminifer analysis agreed with one calcareous nannoplankton study.