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Protracted timescales of lower crustal growth at the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 275–278 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The formation of oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges is a fundamental component of plate tectonics. A large fraction of the new crust is created when magmas in the lower crust cool to form gabbroic rocks. The duration of magmatism during formation of the new gabbroic crust is expected to vary with plate-spreading rate and has been constrained by dating gabbroic rocks at the slow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge and Mid-Atlantic Ridge1,2,3,4. Here we present high-precision U–Pb dating of zircon minerals from gabbroic rocks formed at the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise and exposed at Hess Deep. We find that the zircons formed between 1.420 and 1.271 (±0.006–0.081) million years ago. Within individual samples, the zircon minerals exhibit a range in formation dates of up to 0.124 Myr, consistent with either protracted crystallization from a magma or assimilation into the magma of older zircons from adjacent rocks. The variability of zircon dates is comparable to that measured at the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge3. We conclude that the timescales of magmatic processes in the lower crust may be similar at slow- and fast-spreading ridges, implying that the duration of crust formation at mid-ocean ridges is not only controlled by spreading rate.

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Figure 1: Tectonic setting of Hess Deep.
Figure 2: Representative zircon cathodoluminescence images.
Figure 3: Single grain and grain fragment 206Pb/238U zircon dates from Hess Deep gabbro and gabbronorites.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially funded by National Science Foundation grant OCE-0727914 (S.A.B.), a Cardiff University International Collaboration Award (C.J.L.) and Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/C509023/1 (C.J.M.). We thank L. Koons for separating the Hess Deep zircons, O. Jagoutz and F. Frey for useful discussions of Th and U partitioning in zircon, and D. Wilson for reading and commenting on a draft of the manuscript. We thank J. Schwartz and G. Baines for detailed and useful reviews.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02459, USA

    Matthew Rioux, Noah M. McLean & Samuel A. Bowring

  2. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, UK

    C. Johan Lissenberg & Christopher J. MacLeod

  3. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA

    Eric Hellebrand

  4. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA

    Nobumichi Shimizu

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  1. Matthew Rioux
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  5. Christopher J. MacLeod
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Contributions

M.R. performed zircon geochronology and wrote the paper. C.J.L. collected the samples, performed trace element analyses and generated cathodoluminescence and backscattered electron images. N.M.M. provided statistical expertise. S.A.B. assisted with zircon geochronology. C.J.M. collected the samples and drafted the maps. E.H. generated Y and Hf maps and cathodoluminescence and backscattered electron images. N.S. performed trace element analyses.

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Correspondence to Matthew Rioux.

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Rioux, M., Johan Lissenberg, C., McLean, N. et al. Protracted timescales of lower crustal growth at the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise. Nature Geosci 5, 275–278 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1378

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