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Water and other volatile systematics of olivine-hosted melt inclusions from the Yellowstone hotspot track

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Abstract

Major oxide, trace element and volatile (H2O, CO2, S, F, and Cl) compositions have been analyzed for olivine-hosted melt inclusions in eight basalt samples from Yellowstone National Park and the Snake River Plain (SRP) to identify the least differentiated melt compositions and assess the volatile budget of the Yellowstone hotspot. Melt-inclusion chemistry was evaluated to understand potential overprinting effects in the shallow mantle and crust of magmas derived from deeper levels. Maximum water concentrations of 3.3 wt% and CO2 up to 1,677 ppm have been observed in olivine-hosted melt inclusions from the Gerritt Basalts at Mesa Falls, Idaho (SRP region), which is significantly higher than the maximum concentrations measured in lavas from other hotspots such as Hawaii (~0.8–0.9 wt%). Maximum water concentrations were generally observed in the least differentiated melt inclusions in terms of incompatible major oxide concentrations, indicating that high water concentrations are characteristic of the mantle or perhaps lower crust rather than resulting from differentiation enhancement within the shallow crust, even taking into account the fact that water behaves as an incompatible element during crystal fractionation. Enrichment in Ba coupled with depletion in Th in many of the melt inclusions and their host rocks is a characteristic of many arc lavas and may indicate that volatiles in Yellowstone-Snake River Plain basalts could have a subduction zone origin.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank all individuals at laboratories at the University of Michigan and other institutions who provided essential support with instrumentation in the process of data acquisition for this study. Shaul Hurwitz of USGS provided splits of olivine samples from Yellowstone National Park, and Yellowstone NP provided us permission to work on them. Several people read the manuscript and provided valuable input to which we are indebted, particularly Youxue Zhang, Becky Lange and Sarah Rilling.We would also like to thank the editor and CMP reviewers L. Danyushevsky and an anonymous reviewer for their thoughtful comments, which have further enriched this paper. Leeman acknowledges support of the National Science Foundation for providing time and resources to allow his involvement. This work was supported by NSF grant EAR-0911353 S. Mukasa.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    C. J. Stefano & S. B. Mukasa

  2. Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85705, USA

    A. Andronikov

  3. Division of Earth Sciences, National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA, 22230, USA

    W. P. Leeman

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  1. C. J. Stefano
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Correspondence to C. J. Stefano.

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Communicated by T. L. Grove.

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Stefano, C.J., Mukasa, S.B., Andronikov, A. et al. Water and other volatile systematics of olivine-hosted melt inclusions from the Yellowstone hotspot track. Contrib Mineral Petrol 161, 615–633 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00410-010-0553-8

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