Maclennan John

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Maclennan
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  • Article
    CO2 content beneath northern Iceland and the variability of mantle carbon
    (Geological Society of America, 2017-11-16) Hauri, Erik H. ; Maclennan, John ; McKenzie, Dan ; Gronvold, Karl ; Oskarsson, Niels ; Shimizu, Nobumichi
    Primitive basalt melt inclusions from Borgarhraun, northern Iceland, display large correlated variations in CO2 and nonvolatile incompatible trace elements (ITEs) such as Nb, Th, Rb, and Ba. The average CO2/ITE ratios of the Borgarhraun melt inclusion population are precisely determined (e.g., CO2/Nb = 391 ± 16; 2σM [two standard errors of the mean], n = 161). These data, along with published data on five other populations of undegassed mid-oceanic ridge basalt (MORB) glasses and melt inclusions, demonstrate that upper mantle CO2/Ba and CO2/Rb are nearly homogeneous, while CO2/Nb and CO2/Th are broadly correlated with long-term indices of mantle heterogeneity reflected in Nd isotopes (143Nd/144Nd) in five of the six regions of the upper mantle examined thus far. Our results suggest that heterogeneous carbon contents of the upper mantle are long-lived features, and that average carbon abundances of the mantle sources of Atlantic MORB are higher by a factor of two than those of Pacific MORB. This observation is correlated with a similar distinction in water contents and trace elements characteristic of subduction fluids (Ba, Rb). We suggest that the upper mantle beneath the younger Atlantic Ocean basin contains components of hydrated and carbonated subduction-modified mantle from prior episodes of Iapetus subduction that were entrained and mixed into the upper mantle during opening of the Atlantic Ocean basin.
  • Article
    Causes and consequences of diachronous V-shaped ridges in the North Atlantic Ocean
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2017-11-14) Parnell-Turner, Ross ; White, Nicky ; Henstock, Timothy J. ; Jones, Stephen M. ; Maclennan, John ; Murton, Bramley J.
    In the North Atlantic Ocean, the geometry of diachronous V-shaped features that straddle the Reykjanes Ridge is often attributed to thermal pulses which advect away from the center of the Iceland plume. Recently, two alternative hypotheses have been proposed: rift propagation and buoyant mantle upwelling. Here we evaluate these different proposals using basin-wide geophysical and geochemical observations. The centerpiece of our analysis is a pair of seismic reflection profiles oriented parallel to flow lines that span the North Atlantic Ocean. V-shaped ridges and troughs are mapped on both Neogene and Paleogene oceanic crust, enabling a detailed chronology of activity to be established for the last 50 million years. Estimates of the cumulative horizontal displacement across normal faults help to discriminate between brittle and magmatic modes of plate separation, suggesting that crustal architecture is sensitive to the changing planform of the plume. Water-loaded residual depth measurements are used to estimate crustal thickness and to infer mantle potential temperature which varies by ±25°C on timescales of 3–8 Ma. This variation is consistent with the range of temperatures inferred from geochemical modeling of dredged basaltic rocks along the ridge axis itself, from changes in Neogene deep-water circulation, and from the regional record of episodic Cenozoic magmatism. We conclude that radial propagation of transient thermal anomalies within an asthenospheric channel that is 150 ± 50 km thick best accounts for the available geophysical and geochemical observations.
  • Article
    Bubble formation and decrepitation control the CO2 content of olivine-hosted melt inclusions
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2017-02-16) Maclennan, John
    The CO2 contents of olivine-hosted melt inclusions have previously been used to constrain the depth of magma chambers in basaltic systems. However, the vast majority of inclusions have CO2 contents which imply entrapment pressures that are significantly lower than those obtained from independent petrological barometers. Furthermore, a global database of melt inclusion compositions from low inline image settings, indicates that the distribution of saturation pressures varies surprisingly little between mid-ocean ridges, ocean islands, and continental rift zones. 95% of the inclusions in the database have saturation pressures of 200 MPa or less, indicating that melt inclusion CO2 does not generally provide an accurate estimate of magma chamber depths. A model of the P-V-T-X evolution of olivine-hosted melt inclusions was developed so that the properties of the inclusion system could be tracked as the hosts follow a model P-T path. The models indicate that the principal control on the saturation of CO2 in the inclusion and the formation of vapor bubbles is the effect of postentrapment crystallization on the major element composition of the inclusions and how this translates into variation in CO2 solubility. The pressure difference between external melt and the inclusion is likely to be sufficiently high to cause decrepitation of inclusions in most settings. Decrepitation can account for the apparent mismatch between CO2-based barometry and other petrological barometers, and can also account for the observed global distribution of saturation pressures. Only when substantial postentrapment crystallization occurs can reconstructed inclusion compositions provide an accurate estimate of magma chamber depth.