Geochemistry and paleotectonic setting of Ediacaran metabasites from the Ossa-Morena Zone (SW Iberia)

New results on the geochemistry of Neoproterozoic (late Ediacaran) metabasites of the Ossa-Morena Zone (OMZ, Iberian Massif) are presented. The metabasite suite exhibits N- and E-MORB signatures, as well as volcanic arc signatures. The three amphibolite groups are discerned on the basis of major and trace element contents, and the Nd isotope relations help unravel the existence of a diverse magmatism during late Ediacaran times across the OMZ. N-MORB Serie Negra metabasites are distributed in the southern and, mostly, the central OMZ (Monesterio antiform). Calc-alkaline metabasites are exclusively constrained to the Coimbra-Crdoba sector of the northern OMZ. Finally, E-MORB-type metabasites are widespread across the entire OMZ. In present-day active geodynamic settings, such magma types are typical of younger island arcs, notably of forearc zones that are affected by extension soon after the initiation of subduction. The new geochemical data permit us to postulate a petrological zonation congruent with a N-dipping subduction zone located to the S of the current OMZ during the late Ediacaran. We argue that the metabasite host units represent (continental) shallow-crustal forearc segments of a convergent margin. The volcanic arc edifice would have developed during the latest Ediacaran to early Cambrian times and has been preserved, often without major orogenic reworking, in the central and northern OMZ.