Cold-subduction biogeodynamics boosts deep energy delivery to the forearc

Abstract

Metamorphic fluids in subduction zones carry C–H–N–O–P–S species, which are crucial for sustaining subsurface microbial life at shallower crustal depths in the forearc region. Upwards migration of deeply released fluids to shallower levels, where temperatures permit the persistence of microbial life, is recorded by metasomatic rocks formed along the plate interface. Variations in the redox state and component speciation of metamorphic fluids – from local to secular, and highly dependent on thermal gradients and redox state of subduction inputs – may strongly control microbial pathways or even the possibility for metamorphic fluids to sustain microbial communities in the subsurface biosphere at convergent plate margins. We show that metamorphic fluids containing reduced energy sources for microbial life – e.g., CH4, H2 – are common in Phanerozoic, high-pressure/low-temperature plate-interface metasomatic rocks such as jadeitites and albitites worldwide. Based on the stability fields of minerals hosting CH4, H2 and graphite inclusions, we pinpoint the protracted, probably episodic migration of energy sources in the mantle wedge via fluid circulation being mediated by jadeitites from > ca. 35 km depth, and by their retrogressed counterparts forming from between 35–15 km depth. These fluids can cross the so-called biotic fringe – whose limit is the depth corresponding to ca. 122–135 °C (as deep as ca. 13 km depth depending on geothermal gradients) – as suggested by previous documentation of slab-derived fluids reaching subsurface microbial communities. Thermodynamic modeling indicates that cool thermal gradients, possibly combined with increased inputs of organic matter-rich sediments into subduction, favor the abundance of reduced energy sources relative to more oxidized species (e.g., CO2), thus promoting the proliferation of subsurface microbial life at convergent margins.