Thermodynamic modelling of Sol Hamed serpentinite, South Eastern Desert of Egypt: Implication for fluid interaction in the Arabian-Nubian Shield ophiolites

The Arabian-Nubian Shield is the largest tract of juvenile continental crust of the Neoproterozoic. This juvenile crust is composed of intra-oceanic island arc/back arc basin complexes and micro-continents welded together along sutures as the Mozambique Ocean was closed. Some of these sutures are marked by ophiolite decorated linear belts. The Sol Hamed ophiolite (808±14Ma) in southeastern Egypt at the Allaqi-Heiani-Onib-Sol Hamed-Yanbu arc-arc suture represents an uncommon example of rocks that might be less deformed than other ophiolites in the Arabian-Nubian Shield. In order to understand fluid-rock interactions before and during arc-arc collision, petrological, mineral chemistry, whole-rock chemistry and thermodynamic studies were applied to the Sol Hamed serpentinized ophiolitic mantle fragment. These studies reveal that the protolith had a harzburgite composition that probably originated as forearc mantle in the subducted oceanic slab. We propose that these rocks interacted with Ti-rich melts (boninite) in suprasubduction zone, which latter formed the Sol Hamed cumulates. Spinel's Cr# associated with the whole rock V-MgO composition suggest that the harzburgites are highly refractory residues after partial melting up to 29%. The melt extraction mostly occurred under reducing conditions, similar to peridotites recovered from the subducted lithosphere. Protolith alteration resulted from two stages of fluid-rock interaction. The first stage occurred as a result of infiltration of concentrated CO2-rich fluid released from carbonate-bearing sediments and altered basalt at the subduction zone. The alteration occurred during isobaric cooling at a pressure of 1kbar. The fluid composition during the isobaric cooling was buffered by the metamorphic reactions. The second stage of fluid-rock interactions took place through prograde metamorphism. The increase in pressure during this stage occurred as a result of thrusting within the oceanic crust. In this process the forearc crust was loaded by roughly 20-30km of overthrust rocks.