Investigation into the influence of the Réunion plume on the Central Indian Ridge

<p>Plume-ridge interaction is an important thermal and geological process, which results in various physical and chemical anomalies along a significant length of the global mid-ocean ridge system. Despite numerous studies, some remaining questions to be solved are the origin and mechanisms of geochemical variations and their possible correlation with the morphology of mid-ocean ridges.</p><p>The Central Indian Ridge, with a slow to intermediate spreading rate, provides an ideal opportunity to explore the long-distance plume-ridge interactions. Presently, the ridge is moving away from the Réunion hotspot which is located 1000 km away from the Central Indian Ridge at Réunion Island. Paleogeographic reconstruction suggests that the hotspot crossed the middle part of the Central Indian Ridge (MCIR) between 8°S and 17°S at ~34 Ma. Previous studies argue that the plume material currently flows into the Central Indian Ridge at around 19°S, south of Marie Celeste Fracture Zone (MCFZ) and geochemical enrichments of the mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB) from the MCIR 14°S and 19°S segments can be attributed to a fossil Réunion plume component. However, a recent geophysical study has suggested that the geochemical anomalies along the Rodrigues segment (18-21°S) can be ascribed to the asthenospheric flow from the Réunion plume, reopening the debate about the origin of the enriched anomalies along the MCIR (14-19°S).</p><p>In this study, we revisited the MCIR from 14°S to 17°S with new geochemical data obtained based on high-resolution sampling and ship-board high-resolution bathymetry data to constrain the influence of the Réunion plume on geochemistry and bathymetry of the MCIR. The results show that trace element ratios and isotopic compositions of on-axis MORB vary in association with ridge discontinuities such as transform faults and non-transform fault discontinuities. The MORB from the northern parts of segments display substantially enriched geochemical features and the enrichments correspond to a shallower axial bathymetry. We attribute the chemical and morphological anomalies along the ridge to the influence of a Réunion plume component focussed by a hotspot leading edge effect. The hotspot leading segments are offset in the direction of the plume and are more efficiently affected by the enriched plume materials. These findings suggest that lithospheric discontinuities such as transform faults and fracture zones may control the flow of mantle plume material into the ridge and the geometry of the ridge coupled to its hotspot proximity may play an important role, particularly in the long-distance plume-ridge interaction.</p>