Relations between basalts and adakitic–felsic intrusive bodies in a soft-substrate environment: the South Ouessant Visean basin in the Variscan belt, Armorican Massif, France

The metasedimentary and magmatic terranes in the southern part of the Ouessant Island (Western Brittany, France) are the offshore prolongation of the Léon Variscan metamorphic domain. They mainly consist of micaschists and subordinate amphibolitic lenses (meta-pillow lavas and volcaniclastic successions) cut by a swarm of trondhjemite sills, together with a large porphyritic monzogranite body, newly dated at 336 Ma, and later syeno-leucogranitic intrusions. A large spectrum of fluidal peperites, including spectacular “fiamme”-bearing breccias, is observable at the contact between metasediments and most of the intrusives. The coexistence of amphibolitized basalts, adakitic trondhjemites, and peraluminous granites in the inferred South Ouessant basin is assigned to a variety of deep subcontemporaneous processes, including asthenospheric partial melting, high-pressure fractionation in lithospheric reservoirs (or partial remelting of deep crystallized mafic intrusions), and continental crust melting. Implications of these new results are discussed in the Visean basinal framework of the Armorican Massif, formed at an early stage of the Variscan orogeny.

Geochemical characteristics and petrogenesis of the main granitic intrusions of Greece: an application of trace element discrimination diagrams

Geochemical investigation of samples from 20 granitic intrusions in six tectonic zones of the Hellenides shows that both I-type and S-type granites occur in the region. The I-type granites from four of the zones, namely the Rhodope Massif (RM), the Serbomacedonian Massif (SMM), the Perirhodope Zone (PRZ) and the Attico-cycladic Zone (ACZ), show some systematic differences in their geochemistry. In particular, the Rb, Y, Nb, K and Ti contents increase in the sequence PRZ, SMM, RM and ACZ. The PRZ granites are of Jurassic age, those of the SMM and RM are Eocene to Oligocene and the ACZ ones are Miocene. The differences between zones are attributed to a combination of differences in partial melting and high-pressure fractionation processes. Geochemical differences within zones are explained by variable degrees of amphibole and apatite fractionation and accumulation.