Diverse primitive magmas in the Cascade arc, Northern Oregon and Southern Washington

Abstract

Bulk-rock major- and trace-element composition, petrography and mineral compositions are presented for a diverse suite of 22 primitive mafic lavas in the Cascade Range of northern Oregon and southern Washington. With the exception of an early Western Cascade basalt, all the rocks are younger than 7 Ma. Intensive parameters [F(H2O), f(O2), T, P] for the magmas have been inferred mostly from equilibrium olivine-liquid and plagioclase-liquid relations. Nearly anhydrous, MORB-like, low-K tholeiite was probably derived from relatively high degrees of decompression-induced melting of shallow, depleted, relatively unmetasomatized lithospheric mantle during intra-arc rifting. The degree of partial melting decreases northward along the arc, whereas the depth of average melt generation increases. OIB-like basalt represents deeper, wetter, smaller-degree melts of more enriched asthenospheric mantle, unaffected by subduction. Olivine analcimite resembles the silicate melt considered responsible for within-plate mantle metasomatism. Post-7-Ma subduction-related basalt was derived by low degrees of partial melting of subduction-metasomatized garnet lherzolite, similar to OIB-like basalt source-mantle before modification. The spectrum of subduction-related basalt from cooler and wetter (and slightly more oxidized) absarokite to progressively hotter and drier high-K calc-alkaline basalt and calc-alkaline basalt seems to be due to varying degrees of metasomatism of the deep mantle wedge by relatively cool, wet, LILE-rich absarokitic magmas coming from near the subducted slab. Early Western Cascade basalt is more typically arc-like in its composition and mineralogy, and was probably generated under H2O-rich conditions when more vigorous subduction prevailed. Depleted basaltic andesite may have been generated by low degrees of partial melting of residual harzburgite, possibly formed during the generation of early Western Cascade basalt.