Transverse geochemical zonality: The Karymskii Volcanic Center

• Published in: Journal of volcanology and seismology 2012-09, Vol.6 (5), p.301-315
• Main Authors: Grib, E. N., Leonov, V. L., Perepelov, A. B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Basalt; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Geochemistry; Geology; Geophysics/Geodesy; High temperature; Island arcs; Low temperature; Magma; Volcanoes; Volcanology
• ISSN: 0742-0463; 1819-7108
• DOI: 10.1134/S0742046312050028

Variation in the geochemical characteristics of basalts has been found within the Karymskii Volcanic Center (KVC). The concentrations of potassium, titanium, phosphorus, large-cation, high-charge, rare and rare-earth elements increase from the frontal zone (Pribrezhnyi Yuzhnyi, Stena, Paleo-Semyachik and Malyi Semyachik, and Ditmara volcanoes) toward the backarc zone (Odnobokii, Pra-Karymskii, and Akademii Nauk volcanoes). High ratios of fluid-mobile elements to non-mobile ones in the basalts of the frontal zone provide evidence of low-temperature aqueous fluids being involved in magma generation, with these fluids separating from the subducted oceanic plate at low pressures. The backarc zone typically shows higher Th/Nd and Th/Yb ratios, suggesting high-temperature fluids that take part in magma generation with increasing depth (and increasing temperature) as far down as the top of the subducted plate. The variation in the geochemical characteristics of the KVC basalts from the frontal to the backarc zone is less pronounced than that in the lavas of Mutnovskii and Gorelyi volcanoes in southern Kamchatka. These differences may be related to the geodynamic parameters of the subduction zone in the East Kamchatka and the South Kamchatka segments of the Kamchatka island arc, primarily to the dip angle of the Benioff zone, the distance to the trench axis, the subduction age, and possibly to heterogeneities in the mantle wedge beneath the KVC.