Mafic granulite xenoliths in the Chilka Lake suite, Eastern Ghats Belt, India: evidence of deep-subduction of residual oceanic crust

Granulite xenoliths preserve key geochemical and isotopic signatures of their mantle source regions. Mafic granulite and pyroxinite xenoliths within massif-type charnockitic rocks from the Eastern Ghats Belt have recently been reported by us. The mafic granulite xenoliths from the Chilka Lake granulite suite with abundant prograde biotite are geochemically akin to Oceanic Island Basalt (OIB). They can be distinguished from the hornblende-mafic granulite xenoliths with signatures of Arc-derived basalt occurring in the other suites of the Eastern Ghats Belt. These two groups of xenoliths in the Paleoproterozoic Eastern Ghats Province have quite distinct Nd-model ages- 1.9 Ga and 2.5 Ga respectively, which may be interpreted as their crustal residence ages. Strong positive Nb anomalies, indicating subducted oceanic crust in the source, LREE enrichment and strongly fractionated REE pattern are key geochemical signatures attesting to their origin as OIB-type magma. Also low Yb and Sc contents and high (La / Yb)N ratios can be attributed to melting in the presence of residual garnet and hence at great depths (> 80 km). The variable enrichment in radiogenic 87Sr, between 0.70052 and 0.71092 at 1.9 Ga and less radiogenic 143Nd between ε-1.54 and 7.46 are similar to those of the OIBs compared to MORBs. As OIBs commonly contain some recycled oceanic crust in their sources, we suggest that the residue of the oceanic crust from a previous melting event (~ 2.5 Ga) that produced the Arc-derived basalts (protoliths of hornblende-mafic granulite xenoliths) could have subducted to great depths and mechanically mixed with the mantle peridotite. A subsequent re-melting event of this mixed source might have occurred at ca. 1.9 Ga as testified by the crustal residence ages of the biotite-mafic granulite xenoliths of the Chilka Lake granulite suite.