Our study on the "Mobilization of isotopically heavy sulfur during serpentinite subduction" is now published in Science Advances. In this study we investigated serpentinites and adjacent metagabbroic rocks from the Voltri Massif in Italy. The metagabbroic rocks that are in contact with the serpentinites are highly metasomatized and record mass transfer and in particular, the transfer of HS^- dominated and ³⁴S-enriched fluids from the serpentinite into the adjacent metagabbro. Effectively, we could show that fluids equilibrated with serpentinite carry reduced sulfur species into more oxidized adjacent crustal lithologies thereby inducing numerous redox reactions involving sulfur, iron and carbon in the fluid and the interacting lithologies. We argue here that this process is pervasive along the subduction interface inferring that subsequent melting of these rocks could produce the ³⁴S-signatures observed in arc magmas.

Abundant sulfide minerals occur in the metasomatized eclogites at the contact with the serpentinite.

Citation: Schwarzenbach, E.M., Dragovic, B., Codillo, E.A., Streicher, L., Scicchitano, M.R., Wiechert, U., Klein, F., Marschall, H.R., Scambelluri, M. (2024) Mobilization of isotopically heavy sulfur during serpentinite subduction. Sci. Adv.10,eadn0641.

Further reading: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adn0641