Back-Arc Basin Rocks in the Kohistan Arc Terrane, Northwestern Himalaya, Pakistan

Geochemical Evidence for a Ganderian Arc/back-arc Remnant in the Nashoba Terrane, Se New England, Usa

New geochemical data including Sm/Nd isotopic data show evidence for an early Paleozoic arc/back-arc complex in the Nashoba terrane of southeastern New England. The Nashoba terrane lies between rocks of Ganderian affinity to the northwest and Avalonian affinity to the southeast. It consists of early Paleozoic mafic to felsic metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks that were intruded by intermedi...

Submarine back-arc lava with arc signature: Fonualei Spreading Center, northeast Lau Basin, Tonga

[1] We present major, volatile, and trace elements for quenched glasses from the Fonualei Spreading Center, a nascent spreading system situated very close to the Tofua Volcanic Arc (20 km at the closest), in the northeast Lau Basin. The glasses are basalts and basaltic andesites and are inferred to have originated from a relatively hot and depleted mantle wedge. The Fonualei Spreading Center sh...

Long-Term Stability of Back-Arc Basin Hydrothermal Vents

Since the discovery of hydrothermal vents 40-years ago, long-term time-series have focused on mid-ocean ridge systems. Based on these studies, hydrothermal vents are widely considered to be dynamic, ephemeral habitats. Under this premise, national, and international regulatory bodies are currently planning for the commercial mining of polymetallic sulfide deposits from hydrothermal vents. Howev...

The “guerrero Superterrane”: a Single Terrane or Multiple Arc Segments?

Thematic Article Noble gases in pillow basalt glasses from the northern Mariana Trough back-arc basin

Noble gas concentrations and isotopic compositions have been measured in eight samples of pillow basalt glasses collected from seven different localities along 250 km of the Mariana Trough spreading and rifting axis. The samples have uniform and mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB)-like He/He values of 9±12 ́ 10 (6.4±8.6 times atmospheric) despite large variations in He. Concentrations of the noble ga...