ALBERT

Notes: A sequence of prograde isograds is recognized within the Dalradian Inzie Head gneisses where pelitic compositions have undergone variable degrees of partial melting via incongruent melting reactions consuming biotite. Three leucosome types are identified. At the lowest grades, granitic leucosomes containing porphyroblasts of cordierite (CRD-melt) are abundant. At intermediate grades, CRD-melt mingles with garnetiferous leucosomes (GT-melt). At the highest grades, CRD-melt coexists with orthopyroxene-bearing leucosomes (OPX-melt), while garnet is conspicuously absent. The prograde metamorphic field gradient is constrained to pressures of 2–3 kbar below the CRD-melt isograd, and no greater than 4.5 kbar at the highest grade around Inzie Head.A petrogenetic grid, calculated using thermocalc, is presented for the K2O–FeO–MgO–Al2O3–SiO2–H2O (KFMASH) system for the phases orthopyroxene, garnet, cordierite, biotite, sillimanite, H2O and melt with quartz and K-feldspar in excess. For the implied field gradient, the reaction sequence predicted by the grid is consistent with the successive prograde development of each leucosome type. Compatibility diagrams suggest that, as anatexis proceeded, bulk compositions may have been displaced towards higher MgO content by the removal of (relatively) ferroan granitic leucosome. An isobaric (P = 4 kbar) T–aH2O diagram shows that premigmatization fluids must have been water-rich (aH2O 〉 0.85) and suggests that, following the formation of small volumes of CRD-melt, the system became fluid-absent and melting reactions buffered aH2O to lower values as temperatures rose. GT- and OPX-melt formed by fluid-absent melting reactions, but a maximum of 7–11% CRD-melt fraction can be generated under fluid-absent conditions, much less than the large volumes observed in the field. There is strong evidence that the CRD-melt leucosomes could not have been derived by buoyantly aided upwards migration from levels beneath the migmatites. Their formation therefore required a significant influx of H2O-rich fluid, but in a quantity insufficient to have exhausted the buffering capacity of the solid assemblage plus melt. Fluid : rock ratios cannot have exceeded 1 : 30. The fluid was channelled through a regionally extensive shear zone network following melt-induced failure. Such an influx of fluid at such depths has obvious consequences for localized crustal magma production and possibly for cordierite-bearing granitoids in general.

Notes: Abstract A natural example of phengite that had undergone partial thermal decomposition at a pressure of about 0.5 kbar and a temperature of about 680° C in a contact aureole was exmined in the transmission electron microscope (TEM). Partially pseudomorphed phengites were found to consist of combinations of phengite, biotite, K-feldspar, mullite, sillimanite, spinel and cordierite. Different areas within individual, partially pseudomorphed, phengite grains show various degrees of reaction and different reaction products; the cores are the least reacted and the margins have reacted most. In the cores the assemblage Al-, Mg-enriched phengite+biotite +K-feldspar+mullite±spinel has formed, whereas the assemblage K-feldspar+mullite+sillimanite+spinel +biotite+cordierite has formed at the edges. According to our thermodynamic calculations, the breakdown of phengite should have produced cordierite+spinel +corundum+K-feldspar in regions isolated from the influx of SiO2 and cordierite+andalusite+quartz+K-feldspar in regions near the edge of the grains that were essentially saturated with SiO2. Chemical equilibrium was not achieved in any part of the partially pseudomorphed phengites on a micron scale or larger. Breakdown theoretically should have been complete by about 550° C; the reaction temperature was overstepped by at least 130° C for 20–25 years. The variations in the degree and type of reaction are probably due partly to the availability of suitable nucleation sites in different regions, partly to the need to remove H2O from reaction sites and partly to the influence of SiO2, which diffused into the grains during metamorphism. The presence of SiO2 lowers the equilibrium temperatures. Thus there is a higher driving force for breakdown near the grain boundaries than in the cores. Most of the products show an orientation relationship with the parent phengite and have consistent habit planes; they have their closest-packed planes and closest-packed directions parallel to one another and to those of phengite. Such relationships minimize the strain and surface energies at nucleation and favour most rapid nucleation and growth of the reaction products. The great structural similarity of biotite to phengite resulted in its having the highest rate of nucleation and growth of any product and it occurred in all areas of the phengite pseudomorphs studied. Mullite and sillimanite were produced metastably. Mullite has more rapid nucleation kinetics than other aluminosilicates because it is structurally disordered. Sillimanite formed rather than andalusite in regions of the partially pseudomorphed phengites where the reaction reached an advanced stage, because the reaction from phengite to andalusite requires an energetically unfavourable change in aluminium co-ordination state.