GEOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF COCOS PLATE SEAMOUNT LAVAS

A wide compositional continuum of basalts has been erupted from near-r idge seamounts constructed on the Cocos Plate between the Clipperton a nd Orozco Fracture Zones. They range from highly evolved to moderately primitive (3.0-7.8% MgO), LREE-enriched alkali basalts, to moderately evolved to near-primary (5.2-9.5% MgO) tholeiites indistinguishable f rom N-type MORB. The data set of 159 quench glass analyses exhibits a remarkably consistent variation in both major and trace element compos ition that is keyed to variations in (La/Sm). Modeling of potential li quid lines of descent at pressures ranging from 1 bar to 8 kbar shows that this covariation is partially due to systematic differences in li quid lines of descent, where the alkaline lavas have undergone substan tially more high pressure clinopyroxene fractionation and substantiall y less low pressure plagioclase fractionation than the tholeiites. In addition, systematic variation in the composition of the more primitiv e glasses indicates that they were derived from mixing of discrete enr iched and depleted melts in the heterogenous seamount mantle source at pressures of 8-1 0 kbar and greater, and that clinopyroxene may be a residual phase during partial melting. These results show that porous media flow in the seamount mantle source is minor and that melt transp ort is accomplished primarily through cracking and diking. This study supports suggestions that the general homogeneity of basalt along the EPR is due to mixing in sub-axial magma chambers and mush zones, with additional mixing during partial mantle melting and melt segregation.