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Enhanced Mantle Conductivity from Sulfide Minerals, Southern Sierra Nevada, California
Author(s) -
Ducea Mihai N.,
Park Stephen K.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2000gl011565
Subject(s) - basalt , geology , xenolith , mantle (geology) , geochemistry , petrography , sulfide , partial melting , mineralogy , materials science , metallurgy
Petrographic studies of peridotitic xenoliths entrained in late Quaternary basalts from beneath the southern Sierra Nevada have revealed the presence of accessory sulfide minerals along grain boundaries and fractures. Equilibration temperatures from the xenoliths are sufficiently high that the molten sulfides coexist with the basaltic melt. Sulfides are extremely conductive relative to the solid matrix or the basaltic melt, so a small fraction can increase the bulk conductivity of the mantle appreciably. Previous estimates of 2–5% partial melt from magnetotelluric measurements can be plausibly reduced to less than 1%. Such low melt percentages have longer residence times in the mantle and are more consistent with the volumetrically minor late Quaternary basalt flows and the primitive basalt compositions.