Possibility of titanium transportation within a mantle wedge: formation process of titanoclinohumite in Fujiwara dunite in Sanbagawa belt, Japan

Abstract. Titinoclinohumite-bearing dunites from Fujiwara, the Sanbagawa metamorphic belt of high-pressure type, Japan, were described to examine the possibility of Ti mobility during metasomatism within the mantle wedge. The Fujiwara dunite body and surrounding high-pressure Sanbagawa schists possibly form a subduction complex, and the dunites are a good analogue to the mantle wedge overlying the slab. The Fujiwara dunites are of deserpentinization origin; the deserpentinized olivine is high in Fo (up to 96) and low in NiO (0.2 to 0.3 wt %), and contains magnetite inclusions. Titanoclinohumites are associated with the deserpentinized olivine, as lamellar intergrowth or veinlets, up to 1 cm in width. Other metamorphic minerals include antigorite, brucite, chlorite, ilmenite, perovskite, Ti-rich ludwigite, and carbonates. The protolith of the Fujiwara dunite was partially serpentinized cumulative dunites from intra-plate magma, containing relatively low-Fo (85 to 86) olivines and TiO₂-rich (up to 3 wt %) chromian spinels. The metamorphic olivines and titanoclinohumites contain micro-inclusions of methane (CH₄) with or without serpentine and brucite. The source of Ti for titanoclinohumite was possibly the Ti-rich chromian spinel, but Ti was mobile through hydrocarbon-rich fluids, which were activated during the metamorphism. The hydrocarbons, of which remnants are carbonates and methane micro-inclusions, were derived from carbonaceous materials or bitumen, possibly incorporated in the precursory serpentinized and brecciated peridotite (= the protolith for the Fujiwara dunites) before subduction. Ti can be mobile in the mantle wedge if hydrocarbons are available from the subducted slab.