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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2003; v. 218; p. 401-414;
DOI: 10.1144/GSL.SP.2003.218.01.20
© 2003 Geological Society of London

Hydrothermal and Biogenic Alteration of Oceanic Crust as Recorded in Ophiolites

Ophiolites as faithful records of the oxygen isotope ratio of ancient seawater: the Solund-Stavfjord Ophiolite Complex as a Late Ordovician example

Karlis Muehlenbachs1, Harald Furnes2, Hege C. Fonneland2 & Bjarte Hellevang2

1 Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G OE2, Canada karlis.muehlenbachs{at}ualberta.ca
2 Department of Earth Science, University of Bergen, Allegt. 41, 5007 Bergen, Norway

Fragments of the Ordovician sea floor preserved in the Solund-Stavfjord Ophiolite Complex in Western Norway serve as proxies for the {delta}18O of Ordovician seawater. The pillow basalt sections at Oldra and Strand are both enriched in 18O, recording their alteration by seawater at low temperature on the sea floor. In contrast, the sheeted dykes and gabbros generally are depleted of 18O, reflecting the modal proportion of secondary, low-18O chlorite and epidote formed from seawater at high temperature. These isotopic contrasts simply reflect the high water to rock ratio of sea-floor alteration and the temperature dependence of the 18O partitioning between minerals and water. Superposition of high-{delta}18O pillows on low-{delta}18O dykes and gabbros is a necessary consequence of alteration at both low and high temperatures by a fluid near 0{per thousand} and is easily recognized in well-preserved ophiolites. Also, the {delta}18O of seawater can be independently calculated from 18O fractionations among secondary minerals. Older, dismembered and highly metamorphosed segments of the oceanic crust may still retain the original seawater imprint because their subsequent obduction and metamorphism was relatively closed to external fluids. Suites of diamond-bearing nodules from kimberlites still have contrasting high- and low-{delta}18O eclogites, proving that even subduction into the mantle is not sufficient to erase the seawater fingerprint. Inspection of the sea-floor, ophiolite and eclogite data reveals no secular trend in {delta}18O, indicating that the {delta}18O of seawater has not changed with geological age. Because the {delta}18O of seawater itself is fixed by sea-floor-seawater exchange, the constancy of {delta}18O of seawater implies that the scale and style of sea-floor-seawater interactions has not changed over time.