Rapid cooling and exhumation of eclogitic rocks from the Great Caucasus, Russia |
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| Authors: | A PERCHUK & P PHILIPPOT |
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| Institution: | Institute for Ore Deposits, Geology, Petrology, Mineralogy, and Geochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences,Staromonetny 35, Moscow, 109017, Russia,;CNRS-URA 736, Laboratoire de Pétrologie, UniversitéParis 7, T 26-E3, 4 place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France (email:;) |
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| Abstract: | Diffusion modelling of growth-zoned garnet is used in combination with standard geothermometric and geobarometric techniques to estimate cooling and denudation rates from the mafic eclogites of the Red Cliff area, Great Caucasus, Russia. Euhedral garnet porphyroblasts exhibit different degrees of prograde growth zoning depending on the size of the grain (100 μm to several mm in diameter). Zoning patterns are mainly expressed in terms of Fe–Mg exchange, with 100*Mg/(Mg+Fe) increasing from 18–20 to 33–37 from core to rim. Geothermobarometry yields conditions of 680±40 °C and a minimum of 1.6±0.2 GPa and of 660±40 °C and 0.8±0.2 GPa for the high-pressure and retrograde stages of equilibration, respectively. A temperature of 600±40 °C has been recorded for the late-stage metamorphic overprint in the mica schists surrounding the eclogites. Relaxation of garnet zoning profiles was modelled for three different hypothetical P–T –t trajectories, all with an initial temperature of 680 °C and a pressure change of 0.8 GPa. The first two trajectories involve decompression associated with regular cooling down to 660 °C (near isothermal) and 600 °C. The third path is a two-step trajectory comprising near-isobaric cooling down to 600 °C followed by isothermal decompression to 0.8 GPa. These P–T trajectories cover as wide a range of pressure and temperature changes endured by the rocks as possible, thus representing extreme cases for calculating cooling and exhumation rates. Calculations indicate that the zoning pattern of the smallest garnet (i.e. garnet for which the zoning is most easily eliminated during post-growth processes) along the different paths can be preserved for the following average exhumation and cooling rates: path 1, 143 mm a?1 and 102 °C Ma?1; path 2, 60 mm a?1 and 171 °C Ma?1; path 3, 11–30 mm a?1 and 200–400 °C Ma?1. These results are discussed in light of theoretical P–T–t paths extracted from thermal models of regions of thickened crust, and from analogue models of accretionary wedge and continental lithosphere subduction. |
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| Keywords: | eclogites garnet diffusion modelling rapid cooling rates rapid exhumation rates |
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