Effects of reactive dissolution of orthopyroxene in producing incompatible element depleted melts and refractory mantle residues during early fore-arc spreading: constraints from ophiolites in eastern Mediterranean

Compositional variations of peridotites from the Cretaceous ophiolites in southern Turkey and Northern Cyprus are presented to document the nature of partial melting and possible effects of reactive dissolution of primary mantle phases during fore-arc spreading. The peridotites overall exhibit a range of ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os ratios from 0.1171 to 0.1266 and appear to represent a mantle region that preserves a record of ancient melt depletion. The samples are depleted in ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os compared to the ambient oceanic upper mantle (¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os ~0.127), suggesting that they are representatives of a shallow fore-arc mantle where transport of radiogenic ¹⁸⁷Os during slab dehydration was limited. Chemical variations of primary mantle minerals indicate that the peridotites are the residues of moderate to high degrees (>16%) of partial melting and have experienced significant modal and chemical compositional modification through interaction with oxidizing hydrous basaltic melts. Interacting melts, which appear to be similar in composition to primitive arc tholeiite, are likely to have originated from sub-lithospheric lower part of the mantle wedge during early stages of fore-arc spreading and migrated upward to react with variably depleted harzburgites to induce further melting in the overlying lithospheric mantle through open-system reactive flow. This second stage melting resulted in (1) common occurrence of reactive harzburgites and dunites by incongruent melting of orthopyroxene and crystallization of olivine through interaction with olivine saturated melt; and (2) local development of refertilized peridotites by shallower melt impregnation that involves interaction with olivine + clinopyroxene saturated melt. The dissolution of orthopyroxene caused the reacting melt to be enriched in silica and diluted in incompatible elements which led to the production of the final melts similar in composition to fore arc basalt and boninite. Involvement of compositionally variable mantle and melt components with different rates of melt influx therefore appears to explain the generation of fore-arc crust with a range of diverse rock suites including temporally and spatially associated arc tholeiites and boninites with significant depletion in incompatible elements.