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The effects of the composition and angle of the subducting slab and mantle wedge flow on tectonic and magmatic processes in island arcs and associated back-arcs are poorly understood. Here we analyse the ages and compositions of submarine lavas from the flanks and the floor of the back-arc Futuna Trough some 50 km east of Tanna Island in the New Hebrides arc front. Whereas >2.5 Ma-old back-arc lavas formed from an enriched mantle source strongly metasomatized by a slab component, the younger lavas show less slab input into a depleted mantle wedge. The input of the slab component decreased over the past 2.5 million years while the enriched mantle was replaced by depleted peridotite. The change of Futuna Trough lava compositions indicates rapid (10 s of km/million years) replacement of the mantle wedge by corner flow and slab steepening due to rollback, causing extensional stress and back-arc rifting in the past 2.5 million years. A compositional change in lavas from the Futuna trough at 2.5 Ma suggest a change in mantle source, attributed to slab rollback and the opening of the back-arc basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Hydrothermal activity is abundant at volcanic structures in subduction zones, including those associated with young volcanism in back-arc regions. Fluid boiling is a common process in these environments, but its fractionation and precipitation effects on trace metals and metalloids are still poorly constrained. The submarine back-arc hydrothermal system of Nifonea caldera hosts two recently discovered active vent sites with sulphide-sulphate chimneys showing a diverse mineralogy and chemistry. The focused discharge of fluids with temperatures (up to 368 °C) near the seawater boiling curve at ~ 1860 m water depth and "jets of steam" emitted from the chimney structures suggest fluid boiling. Fluid processes, as well as metal and metalloid deposition vary on a relatively small spatial-scale (<0.5 km2) and coincide with changes in sulphide-sulphate mineralogy and texture between different chimneys with zoning and dendritic intergrowths, indicating temperature gradients and fluid boiling. Boiling-induced precipitation, together with seawater mixing in the sub-seafloor led to a depletion of Zn, Ga, Ge, Ag, Cd, Sb, Au and Pb in the discharging fluids and their precipitates at the main compared to the northern vent site, also resulting in a depleted trace element signature with respect to most other back-arc hydrothermal systems in the Pacific Ocean. A magmatic-hydrothermal signature (high S O 4 2 - ) in some of the discharging fluids propose a weak magmatic volatile influx to the Nifonea caldera hydrothermal system. However, S isotope data provides no evidence for a magmatic volatile component and rather suggests, in combination with the sulphide-sulphate (Zn, Ge, Se, Ag, Cd, Sb, Ba, Au and Pb) and fluid data (high K) that the Nifonea caldera hydrothermal system is dominantly controlled by a combination of boiling, mixing and water–rock interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present here new bathymetric, petrological and geochemical whole rock, glass and mineral data from the submarine Epi volcano in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) island arc. The structure has previously been interpreted to be part of a larger caldera structure but new bathymetric data reveal that the volcanic cones are aligned along shear zones controlled by the local tectonic stress field parallel to the recent direction of subduction. We aim to test if there is an interaction between local tectonics and magmatism and to what extent the compositions of island arc volcanoes may be influenced by their tectonic setting. Primitive submarine Epi lavas and those from the neighbouring Lopevi and Ambrym islands originate from a depleted mantle wedge modified by addition of subduction zone components. Incompatible element ratios sensitive to fluid input (e.g., Th/Nb, Ce/Yb) in the lavas are positively correlated with those more sensitive to mantle wedge depletion (e.g., Nb/Yb, Zr/Nb) amongst the arc volcanoes suggesting that fluids or melts from the subducting sediments have a stronger impact on the more depleted compositions of the mantle wedge. The whole rock, glass and mineral major and trace element compositions and the occurrence of exclusively normally zoned clinopyroxene and plagioclase crystals combined with the absence of inversely zoned crystals and water-bearing phases in both mafic and evolved lavas suggest that the erupted melt was relatively dry compared to other subduction zone melts and has experienced little disequilibrium modification by melt mixing or assimilation. Our data also imply that differentiation of amphibole is not required to explain the incompatible element patterns but may rather result from extensive clinopyroxene fractionation in agreement with petrographic observations. Thermobarometric calculations indicate that the melts fractionated continuously during ascent, contrasting with fractionation during stagnation in an established crustal magma reservoir. We interpret the occurrence of this fractional crystallisation end-member in a relatively thick island arc crust (~30 km thickness) to result from isolated and relatively rapid ascent of melts, most likely through a complex system of dykes and sills that developed due to the tectonic positioning of Epi in a complex tectonic zone between a compressional environment in the north and an extensional setting in the south. We can show that the alignment of the cones largely depends on the local tectonic stress field at Epi that is especially influenced by a large dextral strike-slip zone, indicating that structural features have a significant impact on the location and composition of volcanic edifices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]