Modification of a magmatic tonalite to produce a megacrystal granodiorite by K-metasomatism, Monterey peninsula and northern Santa Lucia Mountains, California, USA
A megacrystal granodiorite, occurring in a pluton in the Monterey peninsula of California, is gradational south to quartz monzonite and then to tonalite and trondhjemite and southeast to granodiorite and then to tonalite. A primary magmatic origin for the pluton is indicated by normally zoned plagioclase crystals and by dikes that extend into biotite-hornblende quartz diorite southeast of Point Lobos and into biotite schists south of Carmel Valley Village. Plagioclase in the tonalite lacks zonation, but toward the northwest, the plagioclase becomes increasingly zoned in the megacrystal granodiorite. Therefore, the shallowest part of the original pluton must have been near Monterey. The tonalite is undeformed but progressively becomes cataclastically broken from the southeast toward the northwest. In less than one kilometer, broken plagioclase crystals are increasingly penetrated and gradually replaced by microcline, converting the tonalite into granodiorite. K-metasomatism first creates tiny microcline islands and veins in interiors of broken plagioclase crystals. Then, the microcline grows and engulfs plagioclase remnants and other groundmass minerals. Eventually, the microcline becomes megacrysts, some as large as 4 cm long. Wartlike myrmekite commonly borders the microcline. In formerly strongly-deformed zones, the microcline megacrysts locally have parallel alignment. Some megacrysts show concentric zonation and alignments of tiny plagioclase inclusions parallel to possible crystal faces of the microcline. Thus, the four facies in the pluton, tonalite, quartz monzonite, granodiorite, and megacrystal granodiorite, which seem to have formed by magmatic differentiation, are a result of cataclasis of a former trondhjemite/tonalite pluton in which some of the plagioclase has been replaced progressively by microcline.
Petrogenesis of a porphyritic granite east of Oporto (Portugal)
A coarsely porphyritic granite of great areal extent in northern Portugal is described from the locality of Cete, cast of Oporto. Geological and petrographical evidence go to show that it originated by consolidation from a magma of much the same composition.
Precambrian crustal components, plutonic associations, plate environment of the Hercynian Fold Belt of central Europe: Indications from a Nd and Sr isotopic study
Apparent crustal residence ages indicated by Nd model age data for metamorphic rocks, sediments and granitoids of the Hercynian Fold Belt of Europe vary from 1.3 Ga to 3.0 Ga, but are mainly in the range 1.4–1.7 Ga. 2 Ga basement inliers have been documented previously in northern Spain and islands off northwestern France but, in addition to these, old (∼2–3 Ga) model ages are found along the southern margin of the fold belt. These do not identify old inliers but are interpreted to represent Archeanearly Proterozoic crustal components recycled from a southern source. The Nd data, when considered together with the surface geology and recent single-grain zircon ion microprobe data, argue against a binary mixing of Archean components with new Palaeozoic crustal additions to generate the main 1.4–1.7 Ga model age population. Hercynian Europe comprise mainly recycled Proterozoic components although significant new Palaeozoic additions as well as Archean contributions are indicated.Nd and Sr isotopic data together with previous chemical and petrographic observations allow the recognition of a northern belt of continent margin I-type granitoids grading southwards to inner continent S-type plutons in the eastern half of the fold belt. This felsic plutonic association is used to infer a Hercynian plate configuration involving the attachment of the fold belt to a southern parent cratonic block that the model age data suggest may be of early Proterozoic-Archean age.