Ultra-calcic magmas generated from Ca-depleted mantle: An experimental study on the origin of ankaramites

Ultra-calcic ankaramitic magmas or melt inclusions are ubiquitous in arc, ocean-island and mid-ocean ridge settings. They are primitive in character (X-Mg > 0.65) and have high CaO contents (>14 wt %) and CaO/Al2O3 (>1.1). Experiments on an ankaramite from Epi, Vanuatu arc, demonstrate that its liquidus surface has only clinopyroxene at pressures of 15 and 20 kbar, with X-CO2 in the volatile component from 0 to 0.86. The parental Epi ankaramite is thus not an unfractionated magma. However, forcing the ankaramite experimentally into saturation with olivine, orthopyroxene and spinel results in more magnesian, ultra-calcic melts with CaO/Al2O3 of 1.21-1.58. The experimental melts are not extremely Ca-rich but high in CaO/Al2O3 and in MgO (up to 18.5 wt %), and would evolve to high-CaO melts through olivine fractionation. Fractionation models show that the Epi parent magma can be derived from such ultra-calcic experimental melts through mainly olivine fractionation. We show that the experimental ultra-calcic melts could form through low-degree melting of somewhat refractory mantle. The latter would have been depleted by previous melt extraction, which increases the CaO/Al2O3 in the residue as long as some clinopyroxene remains residual. This finding corrects the common assumption that ultra-calcic magmas must come from a Ca-rich pyroxenite-type source. The temperatures necessary for the generation of ultra-calcic magmas are greater than or equal to1330degreesC, and their presence would suggest melting regimes that are at the upper temperature end of previous interpretations made on the basis of picritic magmas.