Heavy oxygen recycled into the lithospheric mantle

Magmas in volcanic arcs have geochemical and isotopic signatures that can be related to mantle metasomatism due to fluids and melts released by the down-going oceanic crust and overlying sediments, which modify the chemistry and mineralogy of the mantle wedge. However, the effectiveness of subduction-related metasomatic processes is difficult to evaluate because the composition of arc magmas is often overprinted by interactions with crustal lithologies occurring during magma ascent and emplacement. Here, we show unequivocal evidence for recycling of continental crust components into the mantle. Veined peridotite xenoliths sampled from Tallante monogenetic volcanoes in the Betic Cordillera (southern Spain) provide insights for mantle domains that reacted with Si-rich melts derived by partial melting of subducted crustal material. Felsic veins crosscutting peridotite and the surrounding orthopyroxene-rich metasomatic aureoles show the highest 18O/16O ratios measured to date in upper mantle assemblages worldwide. The anomalously high oxygen isotope compositions, coupled with very high 87Sr/86Sr values, imply the continental crust origin of the injected melts. Isotopic anomalies are progressively attenuated in peridotite away from the veins, showing 18O isotope variations well correlated with the amount of newly formed orthopyroxene. Diffusion may also affect the isotope ratios of mantle rocks undergoing crustal metasomatism due to the relaxation of 18O isotope anomalies to normal mantle values through time. Overall, the data define an O isotope “benchmark” allowing discrimination between mantle sources that attained re-equilibration after metasomatism (>5 Myr) and those affected by more recent subduction-derived enrichment processes.