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Water transport by subduction: Clues from garnet of Erzgebirge UHP eclogite

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Published/Copyright: May 6, 2017
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American Mineralogist
From the journal American Mineralogist Volume 102 Issue 5

Abstract

A key question concerning the water budget of Earth’s mantle is how much water is actually recycled into the mantle by the subduction of eclogitized oceanic crust. Hydrous phases are stable only in quartz eclogite not coesite eclogite so that water transport to greater depths is mainly governed by structural water in omphacite and garnet. Here we explore if garnet can be used as a proxy to assess the amount of this water. Available data on the water contents of garnet in coesite eclogite vary over orders of magnitude, from a few up to ca. 2000 ppm. By implication, the maximum bulk-rock water contents are unrealistically high (wt% level). New data from the Erzgebirge indicate moderate amounts of structural H2O stored in garnet (43–84 ppm), omphacite (400–820 ppm), and in the bulk coesite eclogite (ca. 280–460 ppm). Higher garnet water contents occur, but these are not primary features. They are related to molecular water in fluid inclusions that can be attributed to eclogite-facies fluid influx postdating the metamorphic peak. Fluid influx also caused the uptake of additional structural water in garnet domains close to fluid inclusions. Such secondary H2O incorporation is only possible in the case of primary water-deficiency indicating that garnet hosted less water than it was able to store. This is insofar astonishing as comparably high H2O amounts are liberated by the breakdown of prograde eclogite-facies hydrous minerals as a result of ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphism. Judging from Erzgebirge quartz eclogite, dehydration of 5–10% hydrous minerals (±equal portions of zoisite+calcic amphibole) produces 1500–3000 ppm water. We infer that the largest part of the liberated water escaped, probably due to kinetic reasons, and hydrated exhuming UHP slices in the hanging-wall. Depending on the physical conditions, water influx in eclogite during exhumation (1) produces fluid inclusions and simultaneously enhances the structural water content of nominally anhydrous minerals—as in the Erzgebirge—and/or (2) it may give rise to retrograde hydrous minerals. We conclude that eclogite transports moderate quantities of water (several hundred parts per million) to mantle depths beyond 100 km, an amount equivalent to that in ca. 1% calcic amphibole.

Keywords: Eclogite; garnet; infrared spectroscopy; nominally anhydrous minerals; omphacite; subduction; water

Special collection papers can be found online at http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/AmMin/special-collections.html

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Bernard W. Evans (Seattle) for valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Helpful and constructive suggestions by Jörg Hermann (Bern), István Kovács (Budapest), and an anonymous reviewer are greatly acknowledged. Roland Stalder (Innsbruck) is thanked for kindly providing the IR facilities and István Kovács for editorial handling. This research was funded by DFG (grant Schm1039/9-1).

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Received: 2016-7-26
Accepted: 2016-12-30
Published Online: 2017-5-6
Published in Print: 2017-5-24

© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.2138/am-2017-5920
Keywords for this article
Eclogite; garnet; infrared spectroscopy; nominally anhydrous minerals; omphacite; subduction; water

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Highlights and Breakthroughs
  2. Defining minerals in the age of humans
  3. Highlights and Breakthroughs
  4. Bottled samples of Earth’s lower mantle
  5. Highlights and Breakthroughs
  6. Two ways of looking at chemical bonding
  7. Highlights and Breakthroughs
  8. Diamonds from the lower mantle?
  9. Review
  10. A review and update of mantle thermobarometry for primitive arc magmas
  11. Special collection: New advances in subduction zone magma genesis
  12. Using mineral geochemistry to decipher slab, mantle, and crustal input in the generation of high-Mg andesites and basaltic andesites from the northern Cascade Arc
  13. Special collection: From magmas to ore deposits
  14. Sperrylite saturation in magmatic sulfide melts: Implications for formation of PGE-bearing arsenides and sulfarsenides
  15. Special collection: Water in nominally hydrous and anhydrous minerals
  16. Water transport by subduction: Clues from garnet of Erzgebirge UHP eclogite
  17. Special collection: Apatite: A common mineral, uncommonly versatile
  18. Single-track length measurements of step-etched fission tracks in Durango apatite: “Vorsprung durch Technik”
  20. Transformation of halloysite and kaolinite into beidellite under hydrothermal condition
  22. Controls on trace-element partitioning among co-crystallizing minerals: Evidence from the Panzhihua layered intrusion, SW China
  24. Using mineral equilibria to estimate H2O activities in peridotites from the Western Gneiss Region of Norway
  26. Rowleyite, [Na(NH4,K)9Cl4][ V25+,4+(P,As)O8]6⋅n[H2O,Na,NH4,K,Cl], a new mineral with a microporous framework structure
  28. Textures and high field strength elements in hydrothermal magnetite from a skarn system: Implications for coupled dissolution-reprecipitation reactions
  30. X-ray spectroscopy study of the chemical state of “invisible” Au in synthetic minerals in the Fe-As-S system
  32. Dry annealing of metamict zircon: A differential scanning calorimetry study
  34. Tightly bound water in smectites
  36. Mineralogical controls on antimony and arsenic mobility during tetrahedrite-tennantite weathering at historic mine sites Špania Dolina-Piesky and Ľubietová-Svätodušná, Slovakia
  38. Deep mantle origin and ultra-reducing conditions in podiform chromitite: Diamond, moissanite, and other unusual minerals in podiform chromitites from the Pozanti-Karsanti ophiolite, southern Turkey
  40. Trace elements and Sr-Nd isotopes of scheelite: Implications for the W-Cu-Mo polymetallic mineralization of the Shimensi deposit, South China
  41. Letter
  42. Crystal structure of abelsonite, the only known crystalline geoporphyrin
  44. Presentation of the 2016 Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America to Robert M. Hazen
  46. Acceptance of the 2016 Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America
  48. Presentation of the Mineralogical Society of America Award for 2016 to Anat Shahar
  50. Acceptance of the Mineralogical Society of America Award for 2016
  52. Presentation of the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America for 2016 to Sumit Chakraborty
  54. Acceptance of the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America for 2016
  56. New Mineral Names
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