Origin of ocean island basalts in the West African passive margin without mantle plume involvement

The geochemical variabilities in intraplate basalts (IB) from the West African passive margin (WAPM) region, have generally been employed to indicate the presence of recycled materials in an associated upwelling mantle plume. However, the absence of time-progressive linear hotspot tracks in WAPM-IB make it difficult to explain their genesis solely by the mantle plume hypothesis. Here, we show that the Sr–Nd–Hf–Pb isotopic variations in basalts from most of the WAPM-IB could have mainly attributed to the derivation from two types of fusible regions of the refertilized subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM) and the sub-lithospheric mantle. The locations and magma genesis of WAPM-IB are strongly related to the distance from the Mesozoic rift axis and the structure of the rifted SCLM. The melting of the source region can possibly be attributed to small-scale mantle convection at the base of the SCLM without the involvement of a mantle plume.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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