Publication Date:
2011-12-01
Description:
The Acapulco intrusion is a composite pluton that belongs to the coastal batholithic belt of southern Mexico, intruding the Xolapa metamorphic complex and cropping out in the neighboring area of Acapulco city. The Acapulco intrusion has been considered as an anomaly based on its age, which contrasts with the surrounding plutons and the general age trend from the coastal batholithic belt and corresponds to an Eocene–Oligocene age. It ranges in composition from granite (sensu stricto) to syenite and diorite. The most distinctive characteristic of the Acapulco intrusion is the rapakivi texture developed in the granites, which are characterized by biotite, amphibole, allanite, and fluorite as distinctive minerals, plus titanite, zircon, and apatite as accessory phases.Geochemically, the Acapulco intrusion varies from metaluminous to peraluminous, and displays the distinctive signatures of arc-related magmas. The studied rocks show strong negative Sr, Ba, and Eu anomalies, coupled with incompatible element enrichments and high Ga/Al ratios, which are typical characteristics of A-type granites that underwent strong plagioclase fractionation from a formerly metaluminous magma.Initial isotopic ratios (87Sr/86Sr from 0.7035 to 0.7100, and eNd from +5.50 to +1.78) indicate a range from depleted mantle compositions to compositions consistent with crustal contamination by continental crust, particularly from the surrounding Xolapa Complex. U-Pb geochronology in zircons by laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) established crystallization ages of 49.40 ± 0.40 Ma, 50.20 ± 1.0 Ma, 50.42 ± 0.39 Ma, and 50.56 ± 0.39 Ma for different lithologies of the Acapulco intrusion. These geochronological data, together with previous published works, confirm that post-Laramide plutonism between 50 and 60 Ma is widespread in the southern continental margin of Mexico as a major magmatic event.Finally, new thermobarometric determinations established emplacement conditions of ~700°C at 8–10 km depth (2.08–2.8 kbar), indicating an exhumation rate of ~0.21 km/m.y. between 50 and 20 Ma, which is slower than the previous estimated rate of 0.44 km/m.y. These results call for a review on models suggesting fast and/or slow exhumation of the southern Mexico coastal batholitic belt.
Electronic ISSN:
1553-040X
Topics:
Geosciences
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