Petrochemistry and tectonic significance of Lower Cretaceous Barros Arana Formation basalts, southernmost Chilean Andes

The Lower Cretaceous Barros Arana Formation (Albian, hornblende KAr age of 104 Ma), in the Magallanes region of Chile, consists of a sequence of spilitized clinopyroxene- and amphibole-bearing mafic dikes and lavas, and volcaniclastic breccias, occurring within the sedimentary infill of the Rocas Verdes marginal basin and its eastward extension onto the Cretaceous continental platform. Although the original alkali and alkaline earth element concentrations of the basaltic lavas and dikes have been altered by spilitization, the presence of relict pargasitic amphibole phenocrysts, the absence of orthopyroxene, and high LREE contents and LREE/HREE ratios imply mildly alkaline affinities for these basalts. Their low TiO2 and HFSE (Zr, Nb, Ta, and Hf) contents and high LREE/HFSE ratios suggest affinities with convergent plate boundary arc magmas. The Barros Arana basalts are interpreted as mafic members of the mildly alkaline shoshonitic rock suite of subduction-related arcs. They may have formed as subduction geometry began to undergo the changes (flattening) that ultimately led to the initiation of the closure, deformation, and uplift of the Rocas Verdes basin by the late or post-Albian. The low initial 87Sr/86Sr (0.7031) and high initial 143Nd/144Nd (0.51277) of the basalts indicate that a generally extensional tectonic regime east of the main calc-alkaline arc allowed eruption of these mafic shoshonites without interaction with continental crust (in contrast to the contemporaneous plutons of the Patagonian batholith).