ALBERT

Notes: In north-central Wopmay Orogen, syntectonic low-P(Buchan-type) suites of mineral isograds outline regional metamorphic temperature culminations that are associated, at the higher structural levels, with emplacement of early Proterozoic plutons in the west part of a deformed and eastward transported continental margin prism. The mapped isograds mark the first occurrence of biotite, staurolite, andalusite, sillimanite, sillimanite-K feldspar and K feldspar-plagioclase-quartz ± muscovite (granitic) pods in metapelites, with increasing proximity to the plutons.Microprobe analyses and field observations have resulted in the formulation of reactions for the ‘ideal’pelitic system K2O-Na2O-FeO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O, to account for the various mineral assemblages of each metamorphic zone. A P-T petrogenetic grid showing erosion surface P-T curves for the northern Wopmay Orogen pelites, compiled on the basis of the mapped isograds and the inferred reaction(s) for each metamorphic zone, documents a variation in exposed metamorphic pressure ranging between 2 and 4 kbar.The configuration of a new bathograd, based on the invariant model reaction sillimanite + K feldspar + plagioclase + biotite + quartz + vapor ± muscovite + liquid and interpolated across three metamorphic suites, is consistent with a major regional structure culmination and with independently determined pressures obtained from anorthite-grossular-quartz-Al2SiO5 geobarometry. The positive correlation between the configuration of the bathograd and the structural and pressure culmination points to the pressure-dependence of anatectic-granitic-pod mineral associations.

Notes: Variations in assemblage and composition of the constituent minerals in basic and intermediate metavolcanics encountered in the Zarouchla Group of the Phyllite-Quartzite Series are consistent with a progressive sequence, corresponding to temperature conditions estimated at 290-380°C (minimum values) under a total pressure greater than 3°5kbar and possibly as high as 5 kbar. In the absence of more critical evidence, the parageneses recorded in the metavolcanic rocks are interpreted as belonging to a prograde facies series from the lawsonite-albitechlorite facies through the pumpellyite-actinolite facies to the greenschist facies. The present distribution of mineral assemblages does not show a simple increase of metamorphic grade in a given direction but is apparently related to the tectonic evolution of the metamorphic sequence.

Notes: Abstract Mylonites from shear zones cutting Hercynian gneisses in the central Pyrenees have been studied in thin section and using the electron microprobe. The shear zones contain retrogressive greenschist facies assemblages implying introduction of an aqueous fluid during deformation in the zones. Textural evidence suggests that fluid-rock interaction occurred throughout the active life of the shear zones.Whole-rock chemical changes during deformation are documented in a variety of mylonitic lithologies and retrogressed country rocks. The overall effect was to reduce chemical differences between lithologies. Activity diagrams show that this would be expected if a hydrous fluid was circulating between different lithologies during deformation. In most cases fluid/rock ratios were relatively small resulting in gradual chemical changes and repeated recrystallization. ‘Open-system’behaviour with reduction in the number of phases is seen in some granite mylonites, suggesting focusing of fluid movement in parts of the shear zones. Continual fluid-rock interaction may have led to reaction-enhanced ductility in the shear zones over a long period of time. The source of fluid is uncertain, but may be related to underthrusting of material beneath the area investigated.

Notes: Abstract The hornblende-bearing basic gneisses in the Uvete area, central Kenya, were metamorphosed under a narrow range of P and T (6.5 ± 0.5kbar and 530 ± 40°C) of the staurolitekyanite zone in the Mozambique metamorphic belt. They show a wide variety of divariant and trivariant mineral assemblages consisting of hornblende, cumminatonite, gedrite, anthophyllite, chlorite, garnet, epidote, clinopyroxene, plagio-clase and quartz. The bulk and mineral chemistries and the graphical representation of phase relations show that each mineral assemblage approaches chemical equilibrium and defines a unique composition volume in the A′(Al + Fe3+− (13/7)Na)-F(Fe2+)-M′(Mg)-C′(Ca-(3/7)Na) tetrahedron. The composition volumes are distributed quite regularly and do not overlap each other.The phase relations in the Uvete area are in contrast with those in the staurolite-kyanite zone amphibolites in the Mt. Cube quadrangle, Vermont. The amphibolites there contain low-variance mineral assemblages formed under different values of μH2O and μCO2. These assemblages define overlapping composition volumes in the A′-F′-M′-C’tetrahedron.The mineral assemblages in the Uvete area are interpreted as having formed in equilibrium with fluid at a high and nearly constant μH2O value. Such a fluid composition was externally controlled by the supply of H2O-rich fluid expelled from the surrounding pelitic and psammitic rocks. The body size of the basic gneisses in the Uvete area (less than 400m in thickness) was small enough for the fluid to migrate completely.

Notes: Abstract Blueschist-facies rocks on the Seward Peninsula constitute a structurally coherent terrane measuring at least 100 × 150 km. Radiometric age data indicate that high-pressure metamorphism probably occurred in Jurassic rather than in Palaeozoic or Precambrian time, as previously suggested. Protolith sediments (Nome Group) are of intracontinental basin or continental margin type, and of lower Palaeozoic and possibly late Precambrian age, thus predating the high pressure metamorphism by more than 200 m.y.Blueschist-facies mineral assemblages were developed in almost all lithologies of the Nome Group, and are best preserved in FeTi-rich metabasites (glaucophane + almandine + epidote) and pelites (glaucophane + chloritoid + phengite). A lawsonite–crossite subfacies was developed in possible Nome Group rocks on the east flank of the Darby Mountains. Albite–epidote–amphibolite facies assemblages characterize Nome Group rocks in the southwestern part of the Peninsula. Metamorphism in the central zone of the terrane passed from early lawsonitic to subsequent epidote–almandine–glaucophane schist subfacies with the local development (east of the Nome River) of eclogitic assemblages.The high pressure metamorphic minerals were synkinematic with the development of mesoscopic-scale intrafolial isoclinal folds and a flattening foliation of consistent orientation. Initiation of uplift probably corresponded to the growth of barroisite rims on earlier sodic and actinolitic amphiboles, and partial post-kinematic greenschist facies replacements record later stages of decompression. Ophiolites and melange are not associated with the Seward Peninsula blueschists. The high-pressure metamorphism was caused by tectonic loading of a continental plate by an allochthon of indeterminate origin. The PT conditions of high pressure metamorphism were approximately 9–11 kbar, 400–450°C, thus falling between the PT paths of the Shuksan and Franciscan terranes.

Notes: Abstract Two periods of garnet growth (Gt1 and Gt2) have been found in the Finnmarkian nappes of north Norway. In the Kolvik Nappe (the lowest nappe) Gt1 has preserved an S2 syntectonic spiral inclusion fabric; in the Olderfjord Nappe an earlier S1 fabric and an interkinematic inter-D1–D2 fabric have been preserved in Gt1 whilst only the S1 fabric has been found in Gt1 in the Brennsvik Nappe (the highest nappe). In each nappe Gt2 overgrew a penetrative fabric (S2) wrapped around Gt1. In the Kolvik Nappe inclusion fabrics may be continuous from Gt1 into Gt2 but in the higher nappes there is a distinct break. Gt2 may have been partially syntectonic with D3 in the Brennsvik Nappe.Chemically Gt1 in the Kolvik Nappe and in parts of the Olderfjord and Brennsvik Nappes has antithetic Fe-Mn zoning. In all nappes XCa and XMg are weakly zoned in Gt1; XMg increases outwards and is greater in the higher nappes in Gt1 suggesting higher nucleation temperatures. In the Olderfjord and Brennsvik Nappes Gt2 is marked by increasing XCa, probably due to changing garnet-plagioclase equilibria, although the Fe/Mg ratio remains constant. XMg is higher in Gt2 than Gt1.Basement rocks within the nappe pile have an early pre-Finnmarkian growth (Gt1) and a later Finnmarkian growth (GtH) correlated with Gt2 on the basis of chemical zoning patterns.The diachroneity of Gt1 is ascribed to progressively earlier (compared to the structural development) cessation of overstepping of garnet-forming reactions before peak metamorphism in the higher nappes, resulting in earlier structural events being preserved.

Notes: Abstract Fluid inclusion studies of rocks from the late Archaean amphibolite-facies to granulite-facies transition zone of southern India provide support for the hypothesis that CO2,-rich H2O-poor fluids were a major factor in the origin of the high-grade terrain. Charnockites, closely associated leucogranites and quartzo-feldspathic veins contain vast numbers of large CO2-rich inclusions in planar arrays in quartz and feldspar, whereas amphibole-bearing gray gneisses of essentially the same compositions as adjacent charnockites in mixed-facies quarries contain no large fluid inclusions. Inclusions in the northernmost incipient charnockites, as at Kabbal, Karnataka, occasionally contain about 25 mol. % of immiscible H2O lining cavity walls, whereas inclusions from the charnockite massif terrane farther south do not have visibile H2OMicrothermometry of CO2 inclusions shows that miscible CH4 and N2 must be small, probably less than 10mol.%combined. Densities of CO2 increase steadily from north to south across the transitional terrane. Entrapment pressures calculated from the CO2 equation of state range from 5 kbar in the north to 7.5 kbar in the south at the mineralogically inferred average metamorphic temperature of 750°C, in quantitative agreement with mineralogic geobarometry. This agreement leads to the inference that the fluid inclusions were trapped at or near peak metamorphic conditions.Calculations on the stability of the charnockite assemblage biotite-orthopyroxene-K-feldspar-quartz show that an associated fluid phase must have less than 0.35 H2O activity at the inferred P and T conditions, which agrees with the petrographic observations. High TiO2 content of biotite stabilizes it to lower H2O activities, and the steady increase of biotite TiO2 southward in the area suggests progressive decrease of aH2O with increasing grade. Oxygen fugacities calculated from orthopyroxene-magnetite-quartz are considerably higher than the graphite CO2-O2 buffer, which explains the absence of graphite in the charnockites.The present study quantifies the nature of the vapours in the southern India granulite metamorphism. It remains to be determined whether CO2-flushing of the crust can, by itself, create large terranes of largeion lithophile-depleted granulites, or whether removal of H2O-bearing anatectic melts is essential.

Notes: Abstract There are discrete masses of un-deformed metabasite within the blueschist series of the island of Syros. Greece. Around the margins of these masses are zonal sequences through rocks showing intracrystalline deformation but without a geometric fabric, to rocks with discrete and anastomosing shear zones, and finally to penetratively foliated rocks with isolated relics of the original undeformed texture. Textural relics suggest that this spatial sequence is at least qualitatively also a temporal sequence.This progressive shear zone deformation took place concurrently with a glaucophane-epidote to eclogite reaction. The reaction pathways in the rocks that underwent the shear zone deformation can be compared with those in rocks of a similar composition that suffered a longer deformation history and show no relics of an undeformed parent. Although the final assemblages are in both cases the same, the pathways are different. These differences are in part related to reactions promoted by the change from local to bulk equilibrium on the onset of deformation in the rocks. They are also related to the crystallization and later breakdown during the sequence of progressive equilibration of a metastable phase, in this case an impure glaucophane.

Notes: Abstract The Rockley Volcanics from near Oberon, New South Wales occur within the aureole of the Carboniferous Bathurst Batholith and have been contact metamorphosed at P ∼ 100 ± 50MPa (10.5kbar) and a maximum T ∼ 565°C in the presence of a C–O–H fluid. Prior to contact metamorphism the volcanics were regionally metamorphosed and altered with the extensive development of actinolite, chlorite, plagioclase, quartz and calcite. The contact metamorphosed equivalents of these rocks have been subdivided into: Ca-poor (cordierite + gedrite), Mg-rich (amphibole + olivine + spinel), mafic (amphibole + plagioclase) and Ca-rich (amphibole + garnet + diopside; diopside + plagioclase; garnet + diopside + wollastonite) rocks.The chemistry of the minerals in the hornfelses was controlled by the bulk rock chemistry and fluid composition. Pargasites and hastingsites as well as an unusual phlogopite with blue green pleochroism, are found in Ca-rich hornfelses. A comparison of the assemblages with experimentally derived equilibria suggests that the fluid phase associated with the Ca-rich hornfelses was water-rich (Xco2= 0.1 to 0.3) while that associated with the Mg-rich hornfelses was enriched in CO2 (Xco2 〉 0.7). The different hornfels types have reacted to contact metamorphism independently in both their solid and fluid chemistries.