March 2018 – New paper in Geology: melting of pure melanges produces alkaline magmas
Alicia ‘Cici’ Cruz-Uribe (WHOI postdoc 2014-2015) has just published her work on melange melting in Geology.
“Here we report results from experiments in which natural mélange materials were partially melted at upper mantle conditions to produce alkaline magmas. Partial melts produced in our experiments have trace-element abundance patterns that are typical of alkaline arc lavas, such as enrichment in large ion lithophile elements (LILEs) and depletion in Nb and Ta. These results favor generation of alkaline magmas in the arc and backarc regions of subduction zones by partial melting of mélange materials rather than previously metasomatized peridotite.”