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Variable water input controls evolution of the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc

Nature volume 582, pages 525–529 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Oceanic lithosphere carries volatiles, notably water, into the mantle through subduction at convergent plate boundaries. This subducted water exercises control on the production of magma, earthquakes, formation of continental crust and mineral resources. Identifying different potential fluid sources (sediments, crust and mantle lithosphere) and tracing fluids from their release to the surface has proved challenging1. Atlantic subduction zones are a valuable endmember when studying this deep water cycle because hydration in Atlantic lithosphere, produced by slow spreading, is expected to be highly non-uniform2. Here, as part of a multi-disciplinary project in the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc3, we studied boron trace element and isotopic fingerprints of melt inclusions. These reveal that serpentine—that is, hydrated mantle rather than crust or sediments—is a dominant supplier of subducted water to the central arc. This serpentine is most likely to reside in a set of major fracture zones subducted beneath the central arc over approximately the past ten million years. The current dehydration of these fracture zones coincides with the current locations of the highest rates of earthquakes and prominent low shear velocities, whereas the preceding history of dehydration is consistent with the locations of higher volcanic productivity and thicker arc crust. These combined geochemical and geophysical data indicate that the structure and hydration of the subducted plate are directly connected to the evolution of the arc and its associated seismic and volcanic hazards.

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Fig. 1: Bathymetric map of the study area, showing the islands of the LAA.
Fig. 2: Bathymetric map of the LAA compared with water, B/Nb ratios and δ11B of melt inclusions in lavas.
Fig. 3: Melt inclusion Nb/B versus δ11B for LAA magmas from this study.
Fig. 4: Summary of along-arc geochemical and geophysical data.

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Data availability

All geochemical data generated during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files) and can be accessed in the EarthChem repository (https://doi.org/10.26022/IEDA/111527). Compiled geochemical data are freely available from the GEOROC database (http://georoc.mpch-mainz.gwdg.de/georoc/). Shear velocity model data can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/D1306. All broadband OBS data collected by the VoiLA project will become freely available through the IRIS Data Management Center via their data request tools, at the end of the project (April 2021).

Code availability

For plate-tectonic reconstructions we used the GPlates software, which is freely available at https://www.gplates.org/ with the plate model at https://www.earthbyte.org/global-plate-models.

Change history

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Acknowledgements

We thank our project partners R. Robertson, J. Latchman, S. Tait and F. Krüger for support and discussion over the course of this project. We thank C. J. de Hoog for assistance with SIMS analysis at the EIMF, S. Kearns for help with EPMA analysis, the German Instrument Pool for Amphibian Seismology (DEPAS), hosted by the Alfred Wegener Institute Bremerhaven, for providing the ocean-bottom and temporary island seismometers, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (OBSIP) for providing additional ocean-bottom seismometers. This research was funded by the VoiLA NERC consortium grant (NE/K010824/1). SIMS analysis was funded by EIMF proposals IMF619/0517 and IMF653/0518.

Author information

Author notes

  1. George F. Cooper

    Present address: School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    George F. Cooper, Jon D. Blundy, George F. Cooper, Jon D. Blundy, Michael J. Kendall & David Schlaphorst

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Colin G. Macpherson, Alexander A. Iveson, Julie Prytulak, Jon P. Davidson, Colin G. Macpherson, Jon P. Davidson & Jeroen van Hunen

  3. Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Benjamin Maunder, Robert W. Allen, Saskia Goes, Jenny S Collier, Stephen P. Hicks, Benjamin Maunder, Robert W. Allen, Saskia Goes, Jenny S. Collier, Stephen P. Hicks, Richard G. Davy & Jamie J. Wilkinson

  4. University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK

    Nicholas Harmon, Catherine A. Rychert, Nicholas Harmon, Catherine A. Rychert & Tim J. Henstock

  5. Geophysical Institute (GPI), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Lidong Bie, Andreas Rietbrock, Lidong Bie & Andreas Rietbrock

  6. Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK

    George F. Cooper & Jamie J. Wilkinson

  7. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Marjorie Wilson

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Consortia

the VoiLA team

  • George F. Cooper
  • , Colin G. Macpherson
  • , Jon D. Blundy
  • , Benjamin Maunder
  • , Robert W. Allen
  • , Saskia Goes
  • , Jenny S. Collier
  • , Lidong Bie
  • , Nicholas Harmon
  • , Stephen P. Hicks
  • , Andreas Rietbrock
  • , Catherine A. Rychert
  • , Jon P. Davidson
  • , Richard G. Davy
  • , Tim J. Henstock
  • , Michael J. Kendall
  • , David Schlaphorst
  • , Jeroen van Hunen
  • , Jamie J. Wilkinson
  •  & Marjorie Wilson

Contributions

All authors discussed the results and implications of the work and commented on the manuscript at all stages. G.F.C., C.G.M., J.D.B. and A.A.I carried out geochemical analysis and interpretation. G.F.C., S.G., C.G.M., J.D.B. and J.C. drafted the manuscript. N.H. and C.R. produced the shear-wave velocity model. B.M. made the dehydration model. L.B. and S.P.H. compiled local seismicity data. D.S. mapped b-values. R.W.A and J.C. produced the tectonic reconstruction and associated figures. C.G.M., S.G., J.D.B., J.C., A.R., N.H., C.R., J.P.D., T.J.H., J.v.H., J.J.W. and M.W. designed the original VoiLA experiment.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to George F. Cooper.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature thanks William Leeman and Othmar Müntener for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Modelled fracture zones.

a, Modelled fracture zones in the central Atlantic overlaid on an oceanic crust age grid from ref. 13. Coloured stars denote conjugate points associated with opening of the equatorial Atlantic at either end of the Vema (green stars) and Doldrums (yellow stars) fracture zones, and between the Demerara Rise and African continental margin (red stars). b, Modelled fracture zones overlaid on satellite free-air gravity55. Red ellipse marks the location of the proto-Caribbean/Atlantic boundary.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Modified plate reconstruction.

Snapshot of modified plate reconstruction at 50 Ma (ref. 13). Velocity vectors (coloured by plate) shown are relative to the mantle reference frame. The figure shows the four sources of dehydration from the subducted slab over the past 25 Myr considered here: (i) Marathon FZ; (ii) Mercurius FZ; (iii) proto-Caribbean/ equatorial Atlantic boundary and (iv) unnamed FZ formed during proto-Caribbean opening, labelled PC Fracture Zone. MAR, Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Melt inclusion δ11B.

a–e, All values of melt inclusion δ11B measured in this study are shown versus indicators of fluid composition (a, b) and differentiation (c–e). No clear observable trends are shown between islands, indicating that these differences are largely controlled by the mantle source.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Excess dehydration.

The average rate of excess dehydration (above a uniform background), resulting from the subduction of fracture zones and the proto-Caribbean/Atlantic plate boundary, along the arc from 11° N to 18° N over the past 2 Myr (red solid curve) and 25 Myr (blue dotted curve), and below the forearc over the past 2 Myr (dashed yellow line). The pattern of relative distribution of dehydration is robust, constrained by the history of fracture-zone/plate-boundary subduction, but the absolute values of the dehydration rates should be treated with caution, as they depend strongly on the simple model assumptions of the level of hydration and relative strength of fore- and sub-arc dehydration. a, Best estimate; b, northern bound endmember; c, southern bound (see text for details).

Extended Data Table 1 δ11B values, B concentrations and Nb/B of sources of fluids used in the mixing model (Fig. 3).
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Data

The file contains source data for Figs 2–4.

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Cooper, G.F., Macpherson, C.G., Blundy, J.D. et al. Variable water input controls evolution of the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc. Nature 582, 525–529 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2407-5

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