Feldspar recycling across magma mush bodies during the voluminous Half Dome and Cathedral Peak stages of the Tuolumne intrusive complex, Yosemite National Park, California, USA

Incremental pluton growth can produce sheeted complexes with no magma-magma interaction or large, dynamic magma bodies communicating via crystal and melt exchanges, depending on pulse size and frequency of intrusions. Determining the degree and spatial extent of crystal-melt exchange along and away from plutonic contacts at or near the emplacement level, such as in the large, long-lived Tuolumne intrusive complex (TIC) in California, sheds light onto the process and evolution of incremental growth. This study used field mapping and petrographic and geochemical analysis of plagioclase and K-feldspar populations in the equigranular Half Dome (eHD), porphyritic Half Dome (pHD), and Cathedral Peak (CP) Granodiorites of the southeastern section of the TIC to determine the presence and/or extent of feldspar recycling at interunit contacts. Our results suggest that contacts between major units are predominantly ~400-m- to 3-km-thick gradational zones. K-feldspar is compositionally distinct in eHD and neighboring gradational zones and shows no evidence of mixing. K-feldspar in a gradational zone between pHD and CP shows evidence of mixing between the two. Plagioclase in eHD and CP display distinct ranges of anorthite content, Sr, and light rare earth element abundances; both populations are observed in pHD. Major oxide and trace element calculations of melts in equilibrium with plagioclase cores indicate that the melts were more silicic, less calcic, and lower in Sr and Rb than corresponding analyzed whole-rock samples. These results suggest that the magmas also underwent plagioclase and biotite accumulation. The presence of two plagioclase populations in pHD is consistent with eHD and CP hybridizing to form pHD in an increasingly maturing and exchanging TIC magmatic system during the eHD-pHD-CP stages but before groundmass and small K-feldspar phenocrysts crystallized.

Identification of Anorthite-enriched Plagioclase Antecrysts in the Bushveld Complex, South Africa

The origin of cumulate grains in layered intrusions is actively debated. Earliest views assumed that all grains grew in the now-exposed magma chamber. An alternative view is that some grains were injected from deeper magma chambers (never to be exposed). Such grains have been called antecrysts. In this model upward reversals in the anorthite content of plagioclase grains in anorthosite-bearing sequences have been considered to indicate such processes, and are considered to represent the bases of cycles. Data from two deep boreholes in the upper half of the Bushveld Complex permit testing of such ideas. Careful inspection shows that anorthosites (over 45 in one core and 12 in another) do not show an increase in their anorthite contents relative to their immediate footwall samples. Further, all examples of cycles (where enough closely spaced samples are available) in one borehole show that there is a slow upward increase in the anorthite contents over tens of metres and several samples, and that anorthosite does not occur at the base of such reversals, inconsistent with injection and accumulation of a slurry of grains with constant composition. Multiple analyses of many grains in a single sample show a typical standard deviation of ±1·5% An. However, a very few samples from both boreholes show a much larger standard deviation. Examination of every single analysis from one core shows that there are rare, isolated grains with a much higher anorthite content (±5%) than the average, rarely more than one per sample (out of 10–20 analyses). It is perfectly possible that these grains are indeed antecrysts. They are not located specifically in anorthosite samples, but can occur in rocks with any proportion of plagioclase. Based on 3000 analyses they constitute of the order of 1% of the total analysed population. The injection of magma may have occurred, but its entrainment of slurries of plagioclase is not consistent with these data.

Mixing of basaltic and andesitic magmas in the Bazman volcanic field of southeastern Iran as inferred from plagioclase zoning

Late Cenozoic basalts of the Bazman volcanic field, Makran volcanic arc of southern Iran, contain two types of plagioclase feldspar phenocrysts with significant textural and compositional differences. The most common type is rather homogeneous with only weak zoning and maximum An content of 83 mol.%. The less common type of phenocryst exhibits complex zoning and, other than rims, is close in composition and similar in texture to those of associated andesites. This type of plagioclase phenocryst is characterized by an engulfed core with oscillatory zoning, which is overgrown by sieve-textured, moderately zoned mantle, and a relatively narrow rim. In both rock types, the An content of the core is between 40 and 63 mol.% with abrupt fluctuations. No significant correlation between An content and MgO, FeO, SrO and BaO is apparent in the core of phenocrysts in basalts. Anorthite content of the core of phenocrysts in andesites inversely correlates with SrO and BaO. The mantle of plagioclase phenocrysts in both rock types is characterized by sharp increases of An (up to 41 mol.%), MgO, and FeO, in the contact with the core. Anorthite correlates positively with MgO and FeO in the mantle, but correlation between An and SrO and BaO is not evident. It is assumed that plagioclase phenocrysts originally crystallizing from the host andesitic magma were interrupted by mixing with a hotter, juvenile basaltic magma. The resulting changes in temperature, composition, and H2O content of the surrounding melt caused compositional zonation, and the development of resorption in the cores and sieve texture in the mantles. As the An contents of the rims of the phenocrysts resemble the average An content of the groundmass plagioclases in both rock types, it is thought that the two involved magmas gained their independent physical identity before the formation of compositionally-distinct rims of plagioclase phenocrysts.

Experimental constraints on the compositional evolution of crustal magmas

ABSTRACT:Recent water-undersaturated phase equilibrium data on the subsystems of the granite-H2O system have provided important new constraints on the topology of the cotectic surfaces and hence on the compositional evolution of felsic magmas. The effect of water on phase relations can be deduced from a comparison of anhydrous and H2O-saturated data or from data obtained in the presence of a CO2-bearing fluid. However, although new experimental evidence indicates that the silica enrichment of evolving H2O-undersaturated, H2O-unbuffered melts during the co-precipitation of quartz and feldspar is as previously thought for orthoclase-rich compositions, it suggests that such a trend is considerably less for Ab-rich compositions. For water-poor trachytic melts, the newly recognised strong destabilisation of the sanidine melt component relative to the anorthite melt component with increasing water content indicates that the co-precipitation of two feldspars will result in saturation of the melt with ternary alkali feldspar at an earlier stage (i.e. higher melt anorthite content) than previously thought. This, in turn, implies that the melt differentiation path will have a greater component of anorthite depletion during the equilibrium co-precipitation of ternary feldspars and that the melt will remain in the peritectic region of the two feldspar plus liquid surface over a greater interval of crystallisation, thereby enhancing the possibility that the resoption of plagioclase during the early stages of equilibrium with alkali feldspar may go to completion. Comparison of CO2-free and CO2-bearing haplogranitic phase equilibrium data suggests that CO2 may be playing an independent part in the modification of phase equilibria and may induce a significant destabilisation of the orthoclase melt component.

Open-system magma chamber process in the Freetown Complex of Sierra Leone: evidence from Zone 3

The ˜ 7 km thick Freetown layered complex of Sierra Leone consists of four zones each composed of a cyclically layered sequence of troctolite, gabbro, olivine gabbro, gabbronorite, and anorthosite. The complex is thought by previous workers to have solidified in situ from a single parental magma without stratigraphic changes in mineral compositions. Evidence for cryptic variation is presented based on electron microprobe analyses of mega-unit Zone 3. Two reversals in olivine forsterite content, plagioclase anorthite content, and 100 Mg/(Mg Fe2) in clinopyroxene match the variations of Ni in olivine and Cr in clinopyroxene. These changes are consistent with a magma chamber that was open to periodic influxes of new magmas, and the mixing of new and fractionated resident magmas. Expansion of the magma chamber is thought to have occurred at 2000 m, corresponding to the level of a major influx.

Geochemical evidence for loss of Na and K from Moinian calc-silicate pods during prograde metamorphism

SummaryA total of 111 major element analyses have been made of impure calcareous rocks from the Late Precambrian Moinian sequence in NW Scotland. Samples were collected along a 36 km traverse from three stratigraphic horizons which are repeated by folding and vary in metamorphic grade from lower to upper amphibolite facies. Anorthite content of the plagioclase, which increases progressively from albite to anorthite, was assessed by X-ray diffraction measurement of 2θ (131–11); this value is used as a ‘metamorphic index’ for rocks with a CaO/Al2O3 (wt. %) ration of 0.3–0.7 and Na2O/Al2O3, < 0.35. Na2O/Al2O3 and K2O/Al2O3 ratios plotted against this index, together with the spatial relationship between metamorphic/chemical isograds and stratigraphic boundaries show that both Na (0.24–4.82% Na2O) and K (0.01–3.28% K2O) are lost from the calc-silicate rocks during prograde metamorphism. These chemical changes result in a variation of the stable mineralogy with increasing metamorphic grade and take place through the medium of the intergranular fluid.