Detailseite
Projekt Druckansicht

Sind Zirkone für die Ewigkeit? Zum Problem ererbter Zirkone in juveniler Lithosphäre (ozeanische Gesteine) und im subkontinentalen Mantel

Antragstellerinnen / Antragsteller Professor Dr. Alfred Kröner (†); Yamirka Rojas-Agramonte, Ph.D.
Fachliche Zuordnung Mineralogie, Petrologie und Geochemie
Förderung Förderung von 2014 bis 2020
Projektkennung Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 252610233
 
Erstellungsjahr 2021

Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse

To our initial question: Are zircons forever? Our answer is yes! Even if we can not (100 %) demonstrate it and new scientific questions arise, our project has contributed to a better understanding of the problem of zircon inheritance in mantle-derived rocks. We also nicely show that by just sampling in a Pacific beach sand we are able to know what is underneath volcanic islands (with the tiny but mighty zircon) and unravel the history of a mantle plume. Zircon is stable down to 300 km depth, before it transforms into reidite, and it is expected to form after significant crystallization of primitive Zr-subsaturated basaltic liquids. This translates into the potential crystallization of zircons from near-solidus Zr-saturated evolved basaltic liquids at plume-head regions with limited melt fraction. Experimental work shows that zircon can survive in the presence of basic melt for long time as long as the volume of melt that interact with a crystal of zircon is limited in extent. This implies that, once formed, zircon can survive in a hot mantle provided that the plume region was not later affected by relatively large partial melting or by porous flow of significant amount of Zr-undersaturated basaltic liquid, even more if zircon is shielded within other minerals. If shielded in grains of Pb-free minerals, zircon grains can retain their U-Pb crystallization ages even at 1500 ºC, independently of how long they have remained in the mantle. Eventually, rapidly ascending liquids may pick zircon-bearing rock fragments and bring them to the surface. Likely processes may involve dissolution of (some) zircon, if not shielded and/or the liquid arrests in a magma chamber, but ultimately some survived in the crystallizing magmas that eventually reached Zr-saturation and formed new zircon in the lavas, as demonstrated in this study. Our findings of significantly old asthenospheric mantle zircons in Galapagos and Easter, challenge current ideas about asthenosphere convection and plume/lithosphere interaction. In our Galapagos paper we explore circulation processes in the head of the mantle plume and adjacent mantle that may have allowed some of the early crystallized material to remain in the asthenosphere over millions of years until eventually extracted by ascending Galápagos lavas.

Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)

 
 

Zusatzinformationen

Textvergrößerung und Kontrastanpassung