Percolation of enriched melts during incremental open-system melting in the spinel field: A REE approach to abyssal peridotites from the Southwest Indian Ridge

The effects of melting in an open-system scenario are here explored looking to the rare earth element (REE) distribution in mantle residues. We consider a peridotite matrix equilibrated in the spinel field accounting for melt inflow during partial melting. The fertility of the source, inflowing melt composition and melt addition rate as well as the effects of varying the critical mass porosity in an incremental scenario are tested. When a relatively enriched melt enters the system, residual clinopyroxene REE normalized patterns apparently rotate around a light to intermediate REE due to concomitant increase of the light REEs and decrease of the heavy REEs. This effect is enhanced when the critical mass porosity is large with respect to the degree of melting. In these cases the system approaches batch more than fractional melting behaviour because the liquid is preferentially retained in the matrix. This geometry is suggestive of melt accumulation at depth. Four sample suites from the Southwest Indian Ridge are considered. Spinel field equilibrated clinopyroxenes in lherzolites and harzburgites show dredge-scale REE compositional trends that crosscut model fractional melting trajectories. Observed local trends correspond to rotations of the REE patterns attesting for near-batch episodes in the subridge melting history and infiltration of enriched liquids whose composition resemble that of garnet field-generated melts. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.