Volatiles and Redox Along the East African Rift

Abstract

The upper mantle under the Afar Depression in the East African Rift displays some of the slowest seismic wave speeds observed globally. Despite the extreme nature of the geophysical anomaly, lavas that erupted along the East African Rift record modest thermal anomalies. We present measurements of major elements, H₂O, S, and CO₂, and Fe³⁺/ΣFe and S⁶⁺/ΣS in submarine glasses from the Gulf of Aden seafloor spreading center and olivine-, plagioclase-, and pyroxene-hosted melt inclusions from Erta Ale volcano in the Afar Depression. We combine these measurements with literature data to place constraints on the temperature, H₂O, and fO₂ of the mantle sources of these lavas as well as the initial and final pressures of melting. The Afar mantle plume is C/FOZO/PHEM in isotopic composition, and we suggest that this mantle component is damp, with 852 ± 167 ppm H₂O, not elevated in fO₂ compared to the depleted MORB mantle, and has temperatures of ∼1401–1458°C. This is similar in fO₂ and H₂O to the estimates of C/FOZO/PHEM in other locations. Using the moderate H₂O contents of the mantle together with the moderate thermal anomaly, we find that melting begins at around 93 km depth and ceases at around 63 km depth under the Afar Depression and at around 37 km depth under the Gulf of Aden, and that ∼1%–29% partial melts of the mantle can be generated under these conditions. We speculate that the presence of melt, and not elevated temperatures or high H₂O contents, are the cause for the prominent geophysical anomaly observed in this region.