Volcanism in Modern Back-arc Regimes and Their Implications for Ancient Greenstone Belts

Abstract

Greenstone belts are dominated by volcanic rocks with lithogeochemical characteristics that reflect a range of possible geodynamic settings. Many analogies with modern tectonic settings have been suggested. Increasing exploration and comprehensive sampling of volcanic rocks in modern oceans provides the unique opportunity to characterize different melt sources from intraoceanic settings. This thesis examines geochemical data from more than 2850 submarine mafic and more than 2200 submarine felsic volcanic rocks, representing a wide range of settings. The results show significant geochemical variability spanning the full range of compositions of volcanic rocks found in ancient greenstone belts. This diversity reflects complex rift and spreading regimes, variations in crustal thickness, dry melting versus wet melting, mantle mixing and crustal contamination. Highly variable melting conditions are thought to be related to mantle heterogeneities, complex mantle flow regimes and short-lived tectonic domains, such as those caused by diffuse spreading, multiple overlapping spreading centers and microplate breakouts. Systematic differences in the volcanic rocks are revealed by a combination of principal components analysis and unsupervised hierarchical clustering. Rocks from most arc-backarc systems have strongly depleted mantle signatures and well-known subduction-related chemistry. This contrasts with rocks in Archean greenstone belts, which show no, or at least weaker, subduction-related chemistry and stronger mantle enrichment resulting from a less-depleted mantle, less wet-melting, and variable crustal contamination. The geochemistry of the modern volcanic rocks reflects lower mantle temperatures, thinner crust and subduction-related processes of present-day settings. However, rocks that are geochemically identical to those in Archean greenstone belts occur in many modern back-arc basins, such as the Lau Basin. Crustal growth and area-age relationships in the Lau Basin are similar to observed ages and compositions of volcanic assemblages in greenstone belts, such as the Blake River Group of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. Such settings are recognized as favorable locations for volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits, and therefore the particular geochemical signatures of the volcanic rocks are important for enhanced area selection in base and precious metal exploration.