Arc Foundations and Subduction Initiation: Insights into the Magmatic Evolution of the Lower Crust/Upper Mantle of the Izu–Bonin Forearc during Subduction Initiation

Abstract Our understanding of the processes at work in the lower crust/upper mantle transition zone during subduction initiation and early arc development has suffered from a general lack of in situ samples. Here, we present the results of petrographic and geochemical analysis of 34 samples (9 harzburgites, 13 dunites, 2 orthopyroxenites, 3 olivine-gabbros, and 7 wehrlites) collected from the inner trench wall of the Bonin Ridge, Izu–Bonin forearc. The sample suite records three main melt–rock reaction events involving melts with forearc basalt (FAB)-like, boninitic, and transitional compositions. The wehrlitic and gabbroic rocks trend towards more transitional to FAB compositions and the rest towards more boninitic compositions. The crosscutting occurrence of all three events in a single sample (wehrlite D31–106) establishes a relative timing of the events like that reported for the volcanic edifice of the Bonin Ridge, which transitioned from forearc basalt volcanism at subduction initiation (c.a., 51–52 Ma) to boninitic volcanism (c.a., 50–51 Ma) as the subduction system matured. We therefore suggest that the lower crust/upper mantle transition of the Bonin Ridge preserves a record of the transition from FAB melts created by decompression melting at subduction initiation to arc-type flux melting and boninitic volcanism thereafter. Orthopyroxenites and two anomalously fresh harzburgites from the sample suite are suggested to represent the later boninitic melts and possibly the result of hybridization between such melts and residual peridotites, respectively. Diffuse melt–rock reaction between the later boninites and/or subduction-related fluids and the earlier-formed FAB-related crust is recorded by enrichments in fluid mobile elements and depletions in first row transition metals in clinopyroxenes from a metasomatic vein in wehrlite sample D31–106. The chemistry of the wehrlitic and gabbroic clinopyroxenes suggests that they crystallized from hydrous, highly depleted melts which lack a slab fluid signature. We thus suggest that highly depleted melt fractions might be created early on during subduction initiation by the introduction of seawater into the proto-mantle wedge. The overall FAB-like nature of the crustal wehrlites and gabbros would suggest that most of the lower arc crust was created by forearc extension during/following subduction initiation and that later, mature arc volcanism may have contributed little or no material to the lower crust/upper mantle record in the outer forearc.