HR: 15:25h
AN: V13H-08    [Abstracts]
TI: Pyroxene thermometry in the OPX Tongue of the Basement Sill, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica
AU: * Simon, A C
EM: asimon.simon@ccmail.nevada.edu
AF: Blaustein Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Olin Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218 United States
AU: Marsh, B
EM: bmarsh@jhu.edu
AF: Blaustein Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Olin Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218 United States
AB: Unusually large orthopyroxene (Opx) crystals (5 mm) in the 330 m thick doleritic Basement Sill, the basal sill of the Ferrar Dolerite sill complex, possess strong variations in modal abundance and size both across and along the sill length. Opx phenocrysts (with greatly subordinate cpx) are concentrated toward the middle of the sill, forming an extensive ultramafic tongue, which dominates the thickness of the sill in the feeder zone near Bull Pass and progressively thins with increasing distance in all directions away from the feeder zone. The chilled margins of the sill contain no Opx phenocrysts. Based on the physical position of the Opx tongue and the size, abundance and textural condition of these Opx crystals, it has been postulated that these Opx phenocrysts were entrained in the ascending magma after having been texturally equilibrated at a much deeper location than the present level of sill emplacement, approximately 3- 4 km paleodepth. Determining the ultimate provenance of these phenocrysts is an important step in understanding the formation and overall dynamics of this magmatic system. In a real sense these crystals are important dynamic tracers. To gain insight into the origin and history of transport of these crystals, we performed electron probe microanalyses of pyroxenes from samples collected at 15 m intervals through the entire Basement Sill near the feeder zone in West Bull Pass to quantify the compositions of pyroxenes both within the tongue and the bounding chilled margin in order to use crystal-chemical variations to infer crystal histories. Additionally, we calculated equilibrium temperatures for Opx - Cpx mineral pairs, using the QUILF projection scheme at 200 MPa, to determine if pyroxene crystals in the tongue reflect higher temperatures, indicative of crystallization at deeper levels of the sill-complex plumbing system. Despite some scatter in pyroxene compositions, the data indicate that the En (mole % MgSiO3) component of Opx and Cpx increases systematically with depth through the sill, reaching a plateau in the middle of the transect and then decreasing to the chilled margin at the base of the section. The range of En content of Cpx (27 En) is much less than that of Opx (40 En). The Di component of Cpx acts to some degree as a pivot for the varying En/Fs of Opx. The trend in the En component of Opx parallels roughly the trend in whole-rock MgO, the latter being a manifestation of the increase in abundance of En-rich Opx crystals (phenocrysts) in the central part of the sill. Intra-crystal compositional variation is minimal except for the (expected) decrease in En/Fs of grain margins, reflecting simply the iron enrichment of the residual melt with progressive crystallization. The concentrations of Cr and Al in Opx increase systematically with depth in the sill are highest in Opx of the tongue. Compositional tie-lines for Opx-Cpx pairs from the chilled margin and Opx-tongue, when plotted in the pyroxene quadrilateral, possess negative and positive slopes, respectively. Temperature data define a thermal maximum plateau that coincides with the position of the Opx-tongue; 2-pyroxene temperature increasing on the order of 200 degrees C between the chilled margin (900 to 1000 C)and the Opx-tongue (1070 to 1242 C). The pyroxene tongue represents a subsequent, higher temperature, intrusive event. The relatively high temperatures, trace element abundances, and textural information all suggest that the provenance of the crystals forming the Opx Tongue were entrained from a cumulate pile associated with an earlier magmatic event.
DE: 1036 Magma chamber processes (3618)
DE: 1037 Magma genesis and partial melting (3619)
DE: 3640 Igneous petrology
DE: 8439 Physics and chemistry of magma bodies
DE: 9310 Antarctica (4207)
SC: Volcanology, Geochemistry, Petrology [V]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005