ALBERT

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.

Notes: Abstract A garnet–hornblende Fe–Mg exchange geothermometer has been calibrated against the garnet–clinopyroxene geothermometer of Ellis & Green (1979) using data on coexisting garnet + hornblende + clinopyroxene in amphibolite and granulite facies metamorphic assemblages. Data for the Fe–Mg exchange reaction between garnet and hornblende have been fitted to the equation. In KD=Δ (XCa,g) where KD is the Fe–Mg distribution coefficient, using a robust regression approach, giving a thermometer of the form: with very satisfactory agreement between garnet–hornblende and garnet–clinopyroxene temperatures. The thermometer is applicable below about 850°C to rocks with Mn-poor garnet and common hornblende of widely varying chemistry metamorphosed at low aO2.Application of the garnet–hornblende geothermometer to Dalradian garnet amphibolites gives temperatures in good agreement with those predicted by pelite petrogenetic grids, ranging from 520°C for the lower garnet zone to 565–610°C for the staurolite to kyanite zones. These results suggest that systematic errors introduced by closure temperature problems in the application of the garnet–clinopyroxene geothermometer to the ‘calibration’data set are not serious. Application to ‘eclogitic’garnet amphibolites suggests that garnet and hornblende seldom attain Fe–Mg exchange equilibrium in these rocks.Quartzo-feldspathic and mafic schists of the Pelona Schist on Sierra Pelona, Southern California, were metamorphosed under high pressure greenschist, epidote–amphibolite and (oligoclase) amphibolite facies beneath the Vincent Thrust at pressures deduced to be 10±1 kbar using the phengite geobarometer, and 8–9kbar using the jadeite content of clinopyroxene in equilibrium with oligoclase and quartz. Application of the garnet–hornblende thermometer gives temperatures ranging from about 480°C at the garnet isograd through 570°C at the oligoclase isograd to a maximum of 620–650°C near the thrust. Inverted thermal gradients beneath the Vincent Thrust were in the range 170 to 250°C per km close to the thrust.

Notes: Sapphirine occurs in a 3-5 m wide zone between amphibole-lherzolite and garnetiferous metagabbro at Finero in the Ivrea Zone, NW Italian Alps. Layers consisting of plag + hb + sa + cpx + opx + sp + gt are interbanded with spinel pyroxenites, which may contain sapphirine replacing spinel. All minerals are very magnesian, with XMg between 0.78 and 0.92. Bulk rock analyses suggest that precursors to the sapphirine-bearing rocks were igneous cumulates of plagioclase + olivine + hornblende + spinel. Up to 16wt% CaO does not inhibit sapphirine formation and it is the unusually Mg-rich nature of the host rocks which allows sapphirine development. The early igneous assemblage was replaced by one of cpx + sa + hb +± plag at a pressure of 9 ± 1 kbar and temperatures of 900 ± 50°C. Subsequent rapid uplift caused the instability of gt, gt + hb, hb and sa + cpx to form opx + plag ± sp ± sa symplectites.

Notes: The Gran Paradiso basement complex of the French and Italian Alps is composed of metasediments, termed the gneiss minuti, and metabasic rocks, both of which are intruded by a late Hercynian granite. The Bonneval gneiss, which crops out at the western edge of the complex, is composed of highly deformed metasediments, volcanics and volcaniclastic rocks. Eclogites, now highly altered, occur in the metabasic rocks. Kyanite and blue-green amphibole are locally present in the gneiss minuti and aegirine plus riebeckite occur in the Bonneval gneiss. A moderately high pressure - low temperature metamorphic event of probable Alpine age occurred in the basement complex. This metamorphic event differs from that in the overlying Sesia unit and ophiolites of the Schistes lustrés nappe in being at lower pressures (below the ab = jd100+ qz transition) and post-dating the major (D2A) deformation. The origin of the metamorphism is discussed and interpreted as a probable consequence of the overlying nappe pile which was emplaced during the D2A event. Subsequent greenschist facies metamorphism in the basement complex is a consequence of thermal relaxation during uplift.