Plagioclase ultraphyric basalts in Iceland:: the mush of the rift

Glassy, plagioclase ultraphyric basalts from six locations in Iceland have bimodal phenocryst size distributions where microphenocrysts (ol+plg +/- cpx +/- mt) are in equilibrium with the matrix glass, but macrophenocrysts (ol+plg +/- cpx) are too primitive to be so. Matrix glass compositions are similar to those of other rift zone glasses from Iceland, and oxygen isotope variations suggest they interacted with the Icelandic crust. A lack of negative Eu-anomalies in matrix glasses precludes large amounts of plagioclase crystallisation from their parental liquids. Compositions of glass inclusions in plagioclase and olivine macrophenocrysts indicate that parental magma compositions of the macrophenocryst assemblage are similar to those of primitive, Icelandic rift zone glasses. Temperatures for plagioclase macrophenocryst crystallisation obtained from Linkam(R) heating stage experiments, and from glass inclusion compositions corrected for post-entrapment crystallisation, give temperatures up to 1260 degrees C, corresponding to crystallisation at middle to deep crustal levels. Temperature differences of less than 100 degrees C between plagioclase-hosted glass inclusions before and after post-entrapment plagioclase crystallisation show that the macrophenocrysts must have been kept at elevated temperatures prior to incorporation in their present host magmas. We suggest that the macrophenocrysts of the plagioclase ultraphyric basalts accumulated in crystal mush bodies underneath the rift zone and were picked up by their present hosts during a rifting event with increased magma supply from the mantle. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.