Depth and degree of melting of komatiites

Abstract

High pressure melting experiments have permitted new constraints to be placed on the depth and degree of partial melting of komatiites. Komatiites from Gorgona Island were formed by relatively low degrees of pseudoinvariant melting (< 30%) involving L + Ol + Opx + Cpx + Gt on the solidus at 40 kbar, about 130 km depth. Munro‐type komatiites were separated from a harzburgite residue (L + Ol + Opx) at pressures that are poorly constrained, but were probably around 50 kbar, about 165 km depth; the degree of partial melting was <40%. Komatiites from the Barberton Mountain Land were formed by high degrees (∼50%) of pseudoinvariant melting (L + Ol + Gt + Cpx) of fertile mantle peridotite in the 80‐ to 100‐kbar range, about 260‐ to 330‐ km depth. Secular variations in the geochemistry of komatiites could have formed in response to a reduction in the temperature and pressure of melting with time. The 3.5 Ga Barberton komatiites and the 2.7 Ga Munro‐type komatiites could have formed in plumes that were hotter than the present‐day mantle by 500° and 300°, respectively. When excess temperatures are this size, melting is deeper and volcanism changes from basaltic to komatiitic. The komatiites from Gorgona Island, which are Mesozoic in age, may be representative of komatiites that are predicted to occur in oceanic plateaus of Cretaceous age throughout the Pacific [Storey et al., 1991].