Subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath Central Europe

Abstract

Mantle xenoliths in Oligocene–Miocene alkaline lavas in Lower Silesia (SW Poland) and adjacent part of Upper Lusatia (SE Germany) are samples of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle at the time of culmination of rifting in the Eger Rift (Bohemian Massif, Central Europe). The xenoliths come from the spinel mantle facies and show that two major lithologies occur in the area: A—highly magnesian (olivine Fo 90.5–92.0) harzburgites, and B—less magnesian (olivine Fo 84.0–90.0) harzburgites. The protolith of group A was clinopyroxene-free harzburgite being the residue after extensive melting. It was affected by chromatographic carbonatite/silicate melt metasomatism, with the carbonatite metasomatism only recorded in distal parts of the chromatographic systems. The B harzburgites were penetratively metasomatised by percolating alkaline silicate melts at the time of volcanism. That metasomatism was mostly anhydrous and typically cryptic; it lowered the Mg/(Mg + Fe) ratio of olivine and orthopyroxene in the peridotites subjected to melt percolation and led in places to dissolution of clinopyroxene. The mostly harzburgitic subcontinental mantle lithospheric domain beneath Lower Silesia and Upper Lusatia differs from the lherzolitic/harzburgitic ones located to W and SW beneath other parts of European Variscan orogen.