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Subduction signature for quenched carbonatites from the deep lithosphere

¹ Australian Research Council National Key Centre for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2109, Australia
² Australian Research Council National Key Centre for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2109, Australia, and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Exploration and Mining, P.O. Box 136, North Ryde, New South Wales 1670, Australia
³ Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Exploration and Mining, P.O. Box 136, North Ryde, New South Wales 1670, Australia
⁴ Australian Research Council National Key Centre for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, New South Wales 2109, Australia
⁵ Kennecott Canada Exploration Inc., 1300 Walsh Street, Thunder Bay, Ontario P7E 4X4, Canada
⁶ Kennecott Canada Exploration Inc., 354-200 Granville Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 154, Canada

Quenched carbonate-silicate inclusions in lherzolitic clinopyroxene macrocrysts, derived from 200 km beneath the Slave craton in northern Canada, are interpreted as natural samples of mantle carbonatites. Oxygen, carbon, and strontium isotope data provide evidence for the involvement of subducted crustal material in the origin of these carbonatites, supporting suggestions that carbon recycling by subduction is an important prerequisite for carbonatite magmatism. The compositional range of the inclusions suggests that the parent melt was decreasing in silica content as it was trapped in the host crystal, a trend that is predicted experimentally. Isotopic disequilibrium between the carbonatitic inclusions and the host clinopyroxene indicates that they were trapped shortly before kimberlite eruption, suggesting a temporal link between the entrapment of the carbonatite in the host and the Paleocene eruption of the kimberlite.

Key Words: carbonatites • isotopes • subduction • Slave province • mantle melts • xenoliths

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