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Propagating rift tectonics of a Caledonian marginal basin: Multi-stage seafloor spreading history of the Solund-Stavfjord ophiolite in western Norway
Authors:Yildirim Dilek  Harald Furnes  KP Skjerlie
Institution:

aGeological Institute, University of Bergen, Allégt. 41, N-5007 Bergen, Norway

bDeparment of Geology, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA

Abstract:The Late Ordovician Solund-Stavfjord ophiolite in western Norway represents a remnant of the Iapetus oceanic lithosphere that developed in a Caledonian marginal basin. The ophiolite contains three structural domains that display distinctively different crustal architecture that reflects the mode and nature of magmatic and tectonic processes operated during the multi-stage seafloor spreading evolution of this marginal basin. Domain I includes, from top to bottom, an extensive extrusive sequence, a transition zone consisting of dike swarms with screens of pillow breccias, a sheeted dike complex, and plutonic rocks composed mainly of isotropic gabbro and microgabbro. Extrusive rocks include pillow lavas, pillow breccias, and massive sheet flows and are locally sheared and mineralized, containing epidosites, sulfide-sulfate deposits, Fe-oxides, and anhydrite veins, reminiscent of hydrothermal alteration zones on the seafloor along modern mid-ocean ridges. A fossil lava lake in the northern part of the ophiolite consists of a >65-m-thick volcanic sequence composed of a number of separate massive lava units interlayered with pillow lavas and pillow breccia horizons. The NE-trending sheeted dike complex contains multiple intrusions of metabasaltic dikes with one- and two-sided chilled margins and displays a network of both dike-parallel normal and dike-perpendicular oblique-slip faults of oceanic origin. The dike-gabbro boundary is mutually intrusive and represents the root zone of the sheeted dike complex. The internal architecture and rock types of Domain I are analogous to those of intermediate-spreading oceanic crust at modern mid-ocean ridge environments. The ophiolitic units in Domain II include mainly sheeted dikes and plutonic rocks with a general NW structural grain and are commonly faulted against each other, although primary intrusive relations between the sheeted dikes and the gabbros are locally well preserved. The exposures of this domain occur only in the northern and southern parts of the ophiolite complex and are separated by the ENE-trending Domain III, in which isotropic to pegmatitic gabbros and dike swarms are plastically deformed along ENE-striking sinistral shear zones. These shear zones, which locally include fault slivers of serpentinite intrusions, are crosscut by N20°E-striking undeformed basaltic dike swarms that contain xenoliths of gabbroic material. The NW-trending sheeted dike complex in the northern part of Domain II curves into an ENE orientation approaching Domain III in the south. The anomalous nature of deformed crust in Domain III is interpreted to have developed within an oceanic fracture zone or transform fault boundary.REE chemistry of representative extrusive and dike rocks from all three domains indicates N- to E-MORB affinities of their magmas with high Th/Ta ratios that are characteristic of subduction zone environments. The magmatic evolution of Domain I encompasses closed-system fractional crystallization of high-Mg basaltic magmas in small ephemeral chambers, which gradually interconnected to form large chambers in which mixing of primary magmas with more evolved and fractionated magma caused resetting of magma compositions through time. The compositional range from high-Mg basalts to ferrobasalts within Domain I is reminiscent of modern propagating rift basalts. We interpret the NE-trending Domain I as a remnant of an intermediate-spread rift system that propagated northeastwards (in present coordinate system) into a pre-existing oceanic crust, which was developed along the NW-trending doomed rift (Domain II) in the marginal basin. The N20°E dikes laterally intruding into the anomalous oceanic crust in Domain III represent the tip of the rift propagator. The inferred propagating rift tectonics of the Solund-Stavfjord ophiolite is similar to the evolutionary history of the modern Lau back-arc basin in the SW Pacific and suggests a complex magmatic evolution of the Caledonian marginal basin via multi-stage seafloor spreading tectonics.
Keywords:ophiolite  oceanic crust  propagating rift  seafloor spreading  marginal basin  Caledonides
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