Interplay between melt infiltration and deformation in the deep lithospheric mantle (External Liguride ophiolite, North Italy)

Mantle peridotites from the External Liguride Jurassic ophiolites (Northern Apennines, Italy) show diffuse occurrence of pyroxenite bands, recording melt migration and crystallization at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, during old, pre-Jurassic stages of their subcontinental lithospheric mantle evolution. We present coupled microstructural and geochemical study of profiles across various types of pyroxenite-peridotite layering in these ophiolites, aiming to constrain the relative timing and potential interplay between melt infiltration and mantle deformation. The mantle sequence is composed of lherzolite and harzburgite, occasionally interleaved with dunite, crosscut by centimeter- to decimeter-wide pyroxenite layers. The peridotites have a porphyroclastic texture and show a penetrative tectonic foliation subparallel to the pyroxenite layering. Peridotite-pyroxenite contacts are irregular at the grain scale. Olivine and pyroxenes in both peridotites and pyroxenites record moderate to strong crystallographic preferred orientations (CPO) with alignment of olivine [100] and pyroxenes [001] axes subparallel to the stretching lineation marked by olivine and pyroxenes elongation. This is compatible with coeval deformation of olivine and pyroxenes during a high-temperature, spinel lherzolite-facies deformation event. The major and trace element compositions of peridotites record a metasomatic imprint that decreases with distance from the pyroxenite layers, whereas the strength of the olivine CPO decreases from the country peridotites towards the pyroxenite layers. The parallelism between pyroxenite layers and the peridotite foliation, their irregular contacts, as well as the spatial correlation between CPO and geochemical changes, are consistent with syn- to late-kinematic emplacement of the pyroxenites. These observations point to a strong interplay between deformation and melt transport processes in the mantle, characterized by melt focusing in conduits parallel to the foliation and changes in the mantle deformation processes due to the presence of melts. Exhumation of this mantle section in the Jurassic resulted in partial replacement of the spinel-facies assemblage by a plagioclase-bearing assemblage. Topotaxial relationship between plagioclase and precursor spinel-facies minerals suggests that this exhumation was not associated with pervasive deformation of the peridotite, but rather accommodated by deformation localized in discrete shear zones, not sampled in the present study.