Reduced magmatic fluids in basalt from the island of Disko, central West Greenland

Fluid and melt inclusions in minerals of two native iron-bearing dyke rocks from Disko, Greenland, were investigated using heating and cooling microscopic techniques. The melt inclusions in olivine are homogenized at temperatures of 1170–1200 °C. The melts are characterized by high SiO2, K2O and TiO2 and low MgO contents. The co-existence of combined melt–fluid (gas) inclusions in olivine implies that the olivine phenocrysts crystallized from a heterogeneous magma at low pressure. Gas bubbles were investigated in the glass of the rock. Water and four crystalline phases were observed at room and low temperatures on the walls of the bubbles: serpentine, naphthalene, clathrate, and an unknown phase. The complex composition of trapped volatiles is reflected in considerable ranges of clathrate melting and solidus temperatures (20 to 7.5 °C and −82.6 to −73 °C, respectively). Melt equilibrium with metallic iron at T=1450 K suggests that logfO2=−13.95. The calculated composition of C–O–H fluid in equilibrium with Fe, Fe3C and FeS is characterized by high CH4 and H2 contents. During cooling at the postmagmatic stage, polymerization proceeds, and heavy hydrocarbons are formed inside vesicles. The presence of organic compounds in inclusions trapped at a magmatic stage is a natural consequence of unusual reducing condition during crystallization