Longpre, M. -A.

From oxic atmosphere to metallic core, the Earth’s components are broadly stratified with respect to oxygen fugacity. A simple picture of reducing oxygen fugacity with depth may be disrupted by the accumulation of oxidised crustal material in the deep lower mantle, entrained there as a result of subduction. While hotspot volcanoes are fed by regions of the mantle likely to have incorporated such recycled material, the oxygen fugacity of erupted hotspot basalts had long been considered comparable to or slightly more oxidised than that of mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) and more reduced than subduction zone basalts. Here we report measurements of the redox state of glassy crystal-hosted melt inclusions from tephra and quenched lava samples from the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, that we can independently show were entrapped prior to extensive sulphurdegassing. We find high ferric iron to total iron ratios (Fe3+/ Fe) of up to 0.27–0.30, indicating that mantle plume primary melts are significantly more oxidised than those associated with mid-ocean ridges and even subduction zone. These results, together with previous investigations from the Erebus, Hawaiian and Icelandic hotspots, confirm that mantle upwelling provides a return flow from the deep Earth for components of oxidised subducted lithosphere and suggest that highly oxidised material accumulates or is generated in the lower mantle. The oxidation state of the Earth’s interior must therefore be highly heterogeneous and potentially locally inversely stratified.

A submarine eruption started off the south coast of El Hierro, Canary Islands, on 10 October 2011 and continues at the time of this writing (February 2012). In the first days of the event, peculiar eruption products were found floating on the sea surface, drifting for long distances from the eruption site. These specimens, which have in the meantime been termed “restingolites” (after the close-by village of La Restinga), appeared as black volcanic “bombs” that exhibit cores of white and porous pumice-like material. Since their brief appearance, the nature and origin of these “floating stones” has been vigorously debated among researchers, with important implications for the interpretation of the hazard potential of the ongoing eruption. The “restingolites” have been proposed to be either (i) juvenile high-silica magma (e.g. rhyolite), (ii) remelted magmatic material (trachyte),(iii) altered volcanic rock, or (iv) reheated hyaloclastites or zeolite from the submarine slopes of El Hierro. Here, we provide evidence that supports yet a different conclusion. We have analysed the textures and compositions of representative “restingolites” and compared the results to previous work on similar rocks found in the Canary Islands. Based on their high-silica content, the lack of igneous trace element signatures, the presence of remnant quartz crystals, jasper fragments and carbonate as well as wollastonite (derived from thermal overprint of carbonate) and their relatively high oxygen isotope values, we conclude that “restingolites” are in fact xenoliths from pre-island sedimentary layers that were picked up and heated by the ascending magma, causing them to partially melt and vesiculate. As they are closely resem- bling pumice in appearance, but are xenolithic in origin, we refer to these rocks as “xeno-pumice”. The El Hierro xeno- pumices hence represent messengers from depth that help us to understand the interaction between ascending magma and crustal lithologies beneath the Canary Islands as well as in similar Atlantic islands that rest on sediment-covered ocean crust (e.g. Cape Verdes, Azores). The occurrence of “restingolites” indicates that crustal recycling is a relevant process in ocean islands, too, but does not herald the arrival of potentially explosive high-silica magma in the active plumbing system beneath El Hierro. results of our textural, mineralogical, elemental and isotopic analysis lead us to conclude that the early floating stones of El Hierro are vesiculated crustal xenoliths that originate from the substantial layer of sub-volcanic pre-island sedimentary rocks (layer 1 of the oceanic crust) that is present underneath the Canary archipelago.