Ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism: Deep continental subduction
Late chloritoid-staurolite assemblage in a garnet-kyanite–bearing metapelite from the ultrahigh-pressure Brossasco-Isasca unit (Dora-Maira Massif, Western Alps): New petrological constraints for a portion of the decompressional path
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Published:January 01, 2006
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CiteCitation
C. Groppo, D. Castelli, R. Compagnoni, 2006. "Late chloritoid-staurolite assemblage in a garnet-kyanite–bearing metapelite from the ultrahigh-pressure Brossasco-Isasca unit (Dora-Maira Massif, Western Alps): New petrological constraints for a portion of the decompressional path", Ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism: Deep continental subduction, Bradley R. Hacker, William C. McClelland, J.G. Liou
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We conducted a detailed study of a unique metapelite from the ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) Brossasco-Isasca unit (Dora-Maira Massif). It consists of pre-Alpine porphyro-blastic garnet (Grt1), Alpine-age idioblastic garnet (Grt2), phengite, and kyanite. The pre-Alpine garnet contains inclusions of staurolite, kyanite, paragonite, chloritoid, chlorite, quartz, ilmenite, and rutile. The metapelite also includes quartz aggregates after former coesite and fine-grained paragonite aggregates after jadeite. Late chlori-toid and staurolite idioblasts, first reported from a Brossasco-Isasca unit metapelite, are also present in the rock matrix: they grew randomly across the main Alpine UHP foliation defined by phengite. The decompression pressure-temperature (P-T) path of the unit was constructed employing a P-T pseudosection calculated for the model MnNKFMASH (MnO-Na2O-K2O-FeO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O) system in the pressure interval 0.6–1.8 GPa, i.e., below the coesite-quartz transition and within the albite stability field. The absence of albite and biotite, together with the compositions of staurolite, chloritoid, chlorite, and phengite allow us to constrain the 580–590 °C portion of the retrograde P-T path from P = 1.12–0.96 GPa. The results are in good agreement with previously estimated P-T paths, mostly inferred from retrograde assemblages in whiteschist and eclogite of the Brossasco-Isasca unit.
- Alps
- chemical composition
- chloritoid
- Cottian Alps
- Dora Maira Massif
- Europe
- foliation
- garnet group
- Italy
- kyanite
- metamorphic rocks
- metamorphism
- metapelite
- metasedimentary rocks
- mica group
- mineral assemblages
- nesosilicates
- orthosilicates
- P-T conditions
- P-T-t paths
- paragenesis
- phase equilibria
- phengite
- Piedmont Alps
- Piemonte Italy
- porphyroblastic texture
- pressure
- retrograde metamorphism
- sheet silicates
- silicates
- Southern Europe
- staurolite
- textures
- ultrahigh pressure
- Western Alps
- Western Europe
- Brossasco-Isasca Unit
- NKFMASH