Chemistry of the Shiant Isles Main Sill, NW Scotland, and Wider Implications for the Petrogenesis of Mafic Sills |
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| Authors: | GIBB F G F; HENDERSON C M B |
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| Institution: | 1 DEPARTMENT OF ENGINEERING MATERIALS, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD, SHEFFIELD S1 3JD, UK
2 SCHOOL OF EARTH, ATMOSPHERIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, MANCHESTER M13 9PL, UK |
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| Abstract: | Major and trace element data for the Tertiary, Shiant IslesMain Sill, NW Scotland, are used to discuss its complex internaldifferentiation. Vertical sections through the sill exhibitsharp breaks in chemistry that coincide with changes in texture,grain size and mineralogy. These breaks are paired, top andbottom, and correspond to the boundaries of intrusive units,confirming a four-phase multiple-intrusion model based on fieldrelations, petrography, mineralogy and isotopes. Whole-rockchemistry is consistent with this model and necessitates onlyminor revisions to the intrusive and differentiation mechanismspreviously proposed. The rocks contain strongly zoned minerals(e.g. olivine Fo70–5, clinopyroxene Mg# = 75–5,plagioclase An75–5) indicating almost perfect fractionalcrystallization, but whole-rock compositions do not show suchextreme variations. Thus, while residual liquids became highlyevolved in situ, they mainly became trapped within the crystalnetwork and did not undergo wholesale inward migration. Someinward (mainly upward) concentration of residual liquids didoccur to form a ‘sandwich horizon’, but the morevolatile-rich, late-stage liquids that did not crystallize insitu appear to have migrated to higher levels in the sill toform pegmatitic horizons. Parental liquid compositions are modelledfor the intrusive units and it is concluded that the originalparent magma formed by partial melting of upper mantle thatwas more depleted in LREE than the sources of most ScottishTertiary basaltic rocks. Incompatible trace elements in thepicrodolerite–crinanite intrusive unit support isotopeevidence that its parent magma was contaminated by crustal material.Attempts to reconcile the chemical characteristics of the sillwith a recently proposed petrogenetic model based on a singleintrusion of magma differentiated by novel, but controversial,processes fail comprehensively. It is predicted that the complexpetrogenetic history of the Shiant Isles sill is not unusualand could become the model for other large (>50 m thick)sills. KEY WORDS: alkali basalt; differentiation; geochemistry; multiple intrusion; Shiant Isles; sill |
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| Keywords: | : alkali basalt differentiation geochemistry multiple intrusion Shiant Isles sill |
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