The study of textural and chemical characteristics of mafic minerals from mantle xenoliths is essential to investigate the nature of the upper mantle in a continental geodynamic context, melts generation and their effects related to mantle metasomatism. Particular textures in mantle minerals, inclusions or secondary veins of different nature (silicates vs carbonates), bubbles, represent petrographic tools to investigate these processes within the mantle. Petrographic 2D thin sections might overlook these mineralogical features, and 3D textural analysis through X-ray computed microtomography (micro-CT) are crucial to overcome these limitations.
We focused on the Mt. Vulture volcano (southern Italy) rare mantle xenoliths, brought to the surface by a melilitite-carbonatite magma (141 ka), with particular emphasis to spinel-wehrlite xenoliths and wehrlitization processes that is located close to an area of intense CO2 degassing associated to catastrophic earthquakes.
Preliminary results showed interesting 3D textural distributions within the studied xenoliths-forming mantle minerals. In particular, the micro-CT allowed to furnish new constrains on the relationship between fluids entrapment and migration, and structural discontinuities. Indeed, some minerals (especially those from the wehrlite xenoliths) showed a well-correlated distribution of fluid inclusions along the secondary fracturing planes.
This publication results from work conducted under the transnational access/national open access action at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia – Osservatorio Vesuviano (INGV-OV) and supported by WP3 ILGE - MEET project, PNRR - EU Next Generation Europe program, MUR grant number D53C22001400005. The author thanks also Gianmarco Buono and Lucia Pappalardo for their support during the analyses and the post processing process.
OIB localities (e.g., Tristan, Samoa) have been considered ideal natural laboratories for studying mantle heterogeneity. Indeed, Sr, Nd, and Pb isotopes of lavas collected from OIB systems have provided insights into the existence of distinct mantle reservoirs, the origins of which are closely related to local tectonic processes: DMM, HIMU, EM1, and EM2. In this context, we aim to investigate the isotopic composition of noble gases in fluid inclusions trapped in xenoliths and lavas from Samoa and Tristan islands, two well-known enriched mantle (EM) localities.
Our goal is to evaluate the role of noble gas cycling and active tectonic processes on the composition of the upper mantle. Our results show that CO2 is the most abundant volatile in all samples (lavas and xenoliths) from both localities. The 4He/20Ne ratio in most samples is lower than 150, suggesting the presence of atmospheric components in the fluid inclusions. This is further confirmed by the relatively low 40Ar/36Ar ratios, particularly in Tristan samples, which show values below 360. It is worth noting that the Samoa sample exhibits a 40Ar/36Ar ratio of 1000.4, the highest of the dataset. The Rc/Ra values (3He/4He corrected for atmospheric contamination) observed in the Samoa samples align with the Ar ratios mentioned above, as the 3He/4He ratio is the highest reported (13.32Ra). This is above the MORB range, indicating a contribution from lower mantle fluids, likely derived from the Samoan hotspot. In contrast, Tristan samples exhibit low Rc/Ra values, with an average of 5.12Ra. These low helium ratios suggest the presence of a more radiogenic, 4He-rich mantle. The low helium ratios may be related to the EM nature of the mantle. Previous studies in the Canary Islands have shown a decrease in 3He/4He ratios in the eastern part of the archipelago, where EM components have been identified (Hoernle et al., 1993; Simonsen et al., 2001; Day and Hilton, 2011, 2021; Sandoval-Velasquez et al., 2021). However, it is confirmed that an EM component can show a wide range of variation for the 3He/4He ratio, ranging from low values of 5-6Ra to values beyond the typical MORB range, which overlaps (and complicates the distinction) with other OIB contexts with HIMU signature.
This publication results from work conducted under the transnational access/national open access action at INGV-Palermo- Noble gas laboratory supported by WP3 ILGE - MEET project, PNRR - EU Next Generation Europe program, MUR grant number D53C22001400005.