Elsevier

Journal of Asian Earth Sciences

Volume 95, 1 December 2014, Pages 300-312
Journal of Asian Earth Sciences

Effect of time-evolving age and convergence rate of the subducting plate on the Cenozoic adakites and boninites

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2014.06.029Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Most of Cenozoic adakites in the subduction zones are transient.

  • Time-evolving age and convergence rate of the subducting oceanic plate are considered in numerical modeling experiments.

  • Adakites in the Izu–Bonin and western Aleutians are attributed to the time-evolving subduction parameters.

Abstract

Partial melting of subducting oceanic crust expressed as high-Mg volcanic rocks such as adakites and boninites has been actively studied for decades, and Lee and King (2010) reported that time-evolving subduction parameters such as the age and the subduction rate of the converging oceanic plate play important roles in transient partial melting of the subducting oceanic crust (e.g., Aleutians). However, few subduction model experiments have considered time-evolving subduction parameters, posing problems for studies of transient partial melting of subducting oceanic crust in many subduction zones. Therefore, we constructed two-dimensional kinematic–dynamic subduction models for the Izu–Bonin, Mariana, Northeast Japan, Kuril, Tonga, Java–Sunda, and Aleutian subduction zones that account for the last 50 Myr of their evolution. The models include the time-evolving age and convergence rate of the incoming oceanic plate, so the effect of time-evolving subduction parameters on transient partial melting of oceanic crust can be evaluated. Our model calculations revealed that adakites and boninites in the Izu–Bonin and Aleutian subduction zones resulted from transient partial melting of oceanic crust. However, the steady-state subduction model using current subduction parameters did not produce any partial melting of oceanic crust in the aforementioned subduction zones, indicating that time-evolving subduction parameters are crucial for modeling transient eruption of adakites and boninites. Our model calculations confirm that other geological processes such as forearc extension, back-arc opening, mantle plumes and ridge subduction are required for partial melting of the oceanic crust in the Mariana, Northeast Japan, Tonga, and southeastern Java–Sunda subduction zones.

Introduction

Arc magmatism in subduction zones is a manifestation of complex physical and chemical processes in the subducting slab, mantle wedge, and overlying crust. Because subduction is a transient process, arc magmatism in subduction zones also exhibits transient behaviors, such as across-arc migration of volcanism and variation in magmatic rock types through space and time (e.g., Kay et al., 2005, Kelemen et al., 2003, Straub and Zellmer, 2012).

Most arc magmatism is thought to result from partial melting of the mantle wedge triggered by the influx/addition of volatiles released from the subducting slab. However, some volcanic rocks are thought to originate from partial melting of the eclogitized oceanic crust of the subducting slab (Defant and Drummond, 1990, Kay, 1978). Typical examples include the well-known adakites in the Aleutians (Defant and Drummond, 1990, Kay, 1978, Stern and Kilian, 1996), bajaites in Baja California (Rogers et al., 1985, Saunders et al., 1987), and sanukitoids in southwest Japan (Koto, 1916, Stern et al., 1989, Tatsumi and Ishizaka, 1981), named after the region where the rocks were discovered. For convenience, we hereafter call the rock ‘adakite’ if it originated from partial melting of subducting oceanic crust. Additionally, the boninites in the Bonin Islands (Cameron et al., 1979, Kuroda et al., 1978) are thought to be attributable to mixing between partial melts from the mantle wedge and eclogitized oceanic crust. Because a cold subducting slab is unlikely to undergo partial melting, unusual tectonic environments such as subduction zones with a very young subducting slab (<25 Ma), ridge subduction, or flat subduction are generally proposed as sites of adakite genesis (Defant and Drummond, 1990, Gutscher et al., 2000, Kay, 1978, Maruyama et al., 1996, Peacock, 1996). Additionally, recent studies have indicated that plume-slab interaction, cold plumes, and the injection of hot asthenospheric mantle into the corner of the mantle wedge are responsible for the partial melting of oceanic crust (Gerya and Yuen, 2003, Kincaid et al., 2013, Lee and Ryu, in press, Yamamoto and Hoang, 2009).

Recent studies have shown that some ‘adakite-like’ rocks are geochemically similar to adakites but are not produced by the partial melting of subducting oceanic crust (e.g., Chung et al., 2003, Gerya and Yuen, 2003, Guan et al., 2012, Kay and Kay, 1993, Lai and Qin, 2013, Richards and Kerrich, 2007). These studies suggested that such adakite-like rocks could be generated in a variety of tectonic environments: partial melting of relaminated oceanic plate in the mantle wedge, crystal fractionation of basaltic magma, and partial melting of thickened mafic lower crust or delaminated lower crust in the intracontinental region. Castillo (2012) distinguished between adakites and adakitic rocks: adakites are characterized by lower 143Nd/144Nd ratios and higher 87Sr/86Sr compared with adakite-like rocks. Hereafter we use the term ‘adakitic rock’ if the rock originated from processes other than partial melting of subducting oceanic crust but has geochemistry similar to that of adakite.

Adakites and boninites have been recovered in the Izu–Bonin–Mariana, Northeast Japan, and Tonga subduction zones, where partial melting of subducting oceanic crust is not expected from the current slab age and convergence rate (e.g., Defant and Drummond, 1990, Gutscher et al., 2000, Peacock, 1996). Therefore, other mechanisms for partial melting of oceanic crust have been suggested to explain these adakites or boninites. In the Izu–Bonin–Mariana subduction zone, previous studies have suggested that Early Eocene boninites were generated by forearc extension during the subduction initiation or by a hot mantle plume (Pearce et al., 1992, Stern and Bloomer, 1992). The adakites in Northeast Japan were generated by the effect of the back-arc opening of the East (Japan) Sea (Yamamoto and Hoang, 2009), and the origin of Tonga boninites is deeply related to back-arc spreading in the Lau Basin (Cooper et al., 2010).

However, the mechanisms described above are only possible explanations for the existence of adakites or boninites. Additionally, the time-evolving slab age and convergence rate constrained from plate reconstruction models, which were not incorporated in previous studies, may play crucial roles in the genesis of adakites or boninites. For example, numerical modeling experiments by Lee and King (2010) revealed that the time-evolving age and convergence rate of the subducting plate are responsible for localized occurrences of adakites in the Western Aleutians. Plate reconstruction models (Sdrolias and Müller, 2006) have revealed that convergence rate and slab age have changed greatly over time even in the same subduction zone, which suggested that past arc volcanism is a consequence of past subduction environments, affected by past slab age and convergence rate rather than current slab age and convergence rate. Thus, time-evolving numerical model experiments are necessary to clarify arc magmatism. Despite the importance of these subduction parameters, many steady-state numerical model experiments use the constant slab age and convergence rate to infer the past arc magmatism (e.g., Baitsch-Ghirardello et al., 2014, Peacock, 1996, Syracuse and Abers, 2006, van Keken et al., 2002).

In our study, we formulated a series of two-dimensional numerical model experiments including time-evolving age and convergence rate of the subducting oceanic plate that are constrained by recent plate reconstruction models (Sdrolias and Müller, 2006) to investigate the transient partial melting of the oceanic crust in the Izu–Bonin, Mariana, Northeast Japan, Kuril, Tonga, Java–Sunda, and Aleutian subduction zones (Fig. 1). Other subduction zones, such as the Cascadia, southwest Japan, and southern Chile are not considered in this study because a very young subducting slab, ridge subduction and/or flat subduction are the likely causes of the partial melting of oceanic crust in the subduction zones. The next sections compare these model calculations with the results of geochemical and petrological studies, and discuss possible reasons for inconsistencies.

Section snippets

Numerical model

To examine the partial melting of oceanic crust, a series of two-dimensional time-dependent subduction models were formulated for the Izu–Bonin, Mariana, Northeast Japan, Kuril, Tonga, Java–Sunda and Aleutian subduction zones. Because most of the numerical experiments conducted in this study are based on previous studies (Lee and King, 2009, Lee and King, 2010), the scheme and rheology used in the experiments are introduced only briefly here. Time-evolving slab age and convergence rate were

Izu–Bonin–Mariana (IBM)

Fig. 3 presents the time-dependent variations of slab age and convergence rate used in our numerical model calculations (Fig. 3b and c) and the resultant time-dependent evolutions of slab surface temperature (Fig. 3d and e) since 50 Ma calculated for the Izu–Bonin and Mariana subduction zones.

According to our models, in the Izu–Bonin subduction zone (Fig. 3d), slab surface temperature was beyond both the solidi of wet sediments (Nichols et al., 1994) and wet basalt (Kessel et al., 2005, Schmidt

Implications of time-evolving subduction parameters to thermal structure

We conducted a series of two-dimensional numerical subduction model experiments to evaluate whether the partial melting of subducting oceanic crust inferred from adakites and boninites can be correlated with the time-evolving subduction parameters. Our model calculations revealed that the time-evolving age and convergence rate of the subducting oceanic plates could explain the transient adakites and boninites in the Izu–Bonin and Western Aleutians.

To clarify the differences between the

Summary

We formulated a series of two-dimensional numerical subduction models using the time-evolving age and convergence rate of the incoming oceanic plate to understand the genesis of adakites and boninites in the IBM, Northeast Japan, Kuril, Tonga, Java–Sunda, and Aleutian subduction zones. Our model calculations successfully explained the adakites and boninites in the Izu–Bonin and Aleutian subduction zones, which cannot be explained by steady-state subduction models using current slab age and

Acknowledgements

We thank to an anonymous reviewer and Prof. Ikuko Wada for their careful reviews, which significantly improved our manuscript. Yoon-Mi Kim (MEST, 2009-0092790) and Changyeol Lee (NRF-35B-2011-1-C00043) are supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea Government.

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