A very hydrous mantle under the western Pacific region: Implications for formation of marginal basins and style of Archean plate tectonics

Addition of water to the mantle peridotite lowers the solidus temperature and viscosity. Melting experiments of hydrous peridotite show that addition of 0.2 wt.% H2O content lowers the solidus temperature by 150 °C. As a result, the mantle under the region may practically correspond to a ca. 90 °C hotter mantle than normal MORB-source mantle in terms of magmatism and rheology. Numerical simulation for a hotter mantle suggests that many small plates should be formed because of extensive heat release by active magmatism, consistent with many microplates in this region. The presence of many oceanic microplates may be analogous to Archean plate tectonics, characterized by a hotter mantle.