Legacy of mantle fabrics preserved within heavily serpentinized peridotites in Hole BA3A cores of the Oman Drilling Project

Abstract

Crystallographic preferred orientations (CPO) of olivine within natural peridotites are commonly expressed by pole figures for the [100], [010], and [001] axes, and they can be categorized into six well-known crystal fabric types: A, B, C, D, E, and AG. In this paper, we have studied olivine crystal fabrics preserved within serpentinized peridotites in Hole BA3A cores from the Wadi Tayin mantle section of the Samail ophiolite in the Sultanate of Oman, drilled by the ICDP Oman Drilling Project (OmanDP) as part of the Multi-Borehole Observatory (MBO). Hole BA3A cores mostly consist of serpentinized harzburgites with small proportions of thin serpentinized dunitic and mafic layers. Quarter slabs were obtained from Hole BA3A cores, from parts of the core in which the degree of serpentinization was slightly lower than the range of the average through the whole core (70–96 %). The mineral phases and crystal orientations in each polished thin section were analyzed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) system. EBSD mapping and data processing were then performed to reveal the original CPO of mantle olivine, based on the orientation of relict grains of olivine in surrounding serpentine that retain the legacy of mantle fabrics. As a result, we found that olivine CPOs in Hole BA3A cores were mostly characterized by A to D type fabrics typical of steeply oriented, late, relatively low temperature mantle shear zones in the Samail ophiolite, as opposed to A to AG type fabrics typical of high-T asthenospheric mantle textures. However, Hole BA3A cores preserve foliations subparallel to the crust-mantle boundary like some of the high temperature fabrics. This implies that the olivine fabric transition could have occurred during continued deformation at progressively lower temperature until mantle flow ceased within the lithospheric mantle.