Fracturing and crystal plastic behavior of garnet under seismic stress in the
dry lower continental crust (Musgrave Ranges, Central Australia)
Abstract. Garnet is a high strength mineral compared to other common minerals such as quartz and feldspar in the felsic crust. In felsic mylonites, garnet typically occurs as porphyroclasts that mostly evade deformation, except under relatively high temperature conditions. The microstructure of granulite facies garnet in felsic lower-crustal rocks of the Musgrave Ranges (Central Australia) records both fracturing and crystal-plastic deformation. Granulite facies metamorphism at ~ 1200 Ma generally dehydrated the rocks and produced mm-sized garnets in peraluminous gneisses. A later ~ 550 Ma overprint under sub-eclogitic conditions (600–700 °C, 1.1–1.3 GPa) developed shear zones and with abundant pseudotachylyte, coeval with the neocrystallization of fine-grained, high-calcium garnet. The granulitic fractured garnet porphyroclasts in mylonites show high calcium content along rims and fractures. However, in certain cases, these rims are narrower than equivalent rims along original grain boundaries, indicating contemporaneous diffusion and fracturing of garnet. The fractured garnets exhibit internal crystal-plastic deformation, that coincide with areas of enhanced diffusion, usually along zones of crystal lattice distortions and dislocation walls and by subgrain rotation recrystallization. Fracturing of garnet under dry lower crustal conditions, in an otherwise viscously flowing matrix, requires transient high differential stress, most likely related to seismic rupture, consistent with the coeval development of abundant pseudotachylyte.