|
Department of Earth Sciences, Kanazawa University, Kakuma, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan (e-mail: jaja{at}earth.s.kanazawa-u.ac.jp)
Highly metasomatized parts of peridotite xenoliths from Avacha volcano, Kamchatka, Russia, characteristically contain calcic amphiboles, especially tremolites. They are rich in metasomatic pyroxenes with high Mg-number (= Mg/(Mg+Fe) atomic ratio), up to 0.94–0.98, and contain Cr-poor aluminous spinels. They have the spinel lherzolite mineral assemblage and equilibrium temperatures of 900–1000 °C or higher, beyond the stability field of tremolite. The tremolite was therefore retrogressively formed after the peak of high-temperature metasomatism. The high-Mg-number, low-alkali environment facilitates the formation of tremolite instead of Al-rich calcic amphiboles. A sulphur-bearing silicic melt derived from a slab is a probable agent involved in the metasomatism. High fO2 recorded in the highly metasomatized peridotites is consistent with this process. This type of metasomatism can produce high-Mg-number peridotites and pyroxenites with low-Cr-number spinel within the mantle wedge where the Mg-number of silicates is positively correlated with the Cr-number of spinel in ambient peridotites.
