Postcollisional mafic igneous rocks record recycling of noble gases by deep subduction of the continental crust

•Postcollisional mafic igneous rocks show very low 3He/4He and air-like Ne–Ar isotope compositions.•Pyroxene noble gas isotope compositions are correlated with whole-rock geochemistry.•Surface water noble gases were recycled into the subcontinental lithospheric mantle.•The recycling of noble gases was realized by deep subduction of continental crust.•The crust–mantle interaction in the subduction channel is responsible for the noble gas recycling.

Recycling of noble gases from crustal rocks into the mantle is indicated not only by oceanic basalts and mantle xenoliths, but also by ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic rocks in collisional orogens. It is intriguing whether noble gases in continental crust were recycled into the mantle by deep subduction of the continental crust to mantle depths. Here we firstly report the He, Ne and Ar isotopic compositions of pyroxene from postcollisional mafic igneous rocks in the Dabie orogen, China. The results show that the pyroxene separates from the mafic rocks have low 3He/4He ratios of 0.002 to 1.8 Ra and air-like Ne isotope compositions. Furthermore, the pyroxene exhibits low 40Ar/36Ar ratios of 393.6 to 1599.8, close to those of the air. In combination with whole-rock geochemistry it is found that pyroxene 3He/4He ratios are correlated with whole-rock (La/Yb)N and Sr/Y ratios, εNd(t) values and MgO contents. These observations demonstrate the mass transfer from the deeply subducted continental crust to the overlying mantle wedge, recording the source mixing between the crust-derived melt and the mantle peridotite in the continental subduction zone. A direct addition of the crustal He via crust-derived melt to the mantle leads to the extremely low 3He/4He ratios in the orogenic lithospheric mantle, and the dissolved atmospheric Ar and Ne in the subducted supracrustal rocks results in the air-like Ar and Ne isotope ratios. Therefore, the noble gas isotopic signatures of supracrustal rocks were carried into the mantle by the continental deep subduction to subarc depths and then transferred to the postcollisional mafic igneous rocks via the melt–peridotite reaction at the slab–mantle interface in a continental subduction channel. Our finding firstly establishes the slab–mantle interaction model for recycling of supracrustal noble gases in the continental subduction zone.