Petrology of middle proterozoic diabases and picrites from Lake Nipigon,Canada |
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| Authors: | R H Sutcliffe |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Geology, University of Western Ontario, N6A 5B7 London, Ontario, Canada;(2) Present address: Ontario Geological Survey, 917-77 Grenville St., M7A 1W4 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
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| Abstract: | Mafic rocks at Lake Nipigon provide a record of rift-related continental basaltic magmatism during the Keweenawan event at 1109 Ma. The mafic rocks consist of an early, volumetrically minor suite of picritic intrusions varying in composition from olivine gabbro to peridotite and a later suite of tholeiitic diabase dikes, sheets and sills. The diabase occurs primarily as two 150 to 200 m thick sills with a textural stratigraphy indicating that the sills represent single cooling units. Compositional variation in the sills indicates that they crystallized from several magma pulses.The diabases are similar in chemistry to olivine tholeiite flood basalts of the adjacent Keweenawan rift, particularly with respect to low TiO2, K2O and P2O5. The picrites have higher TiO2, K2O and P2O5 than the diabases and are similar to, but more primitive than, high Fe-Ti basalts which erupted early in the Keweenawan volcanic sequence.All of the rocks crystallized from fractionated liquids. The picrites are cumulate rocks derived at shallow crustal depths from a magma controlled predominantly by olivine fractionation. Picritic chills are in equilibrium with olivine phenocrysts of composition Fo80 and are interpreted to represent the least evolved liquids observed. The parental magma of the picrites was probably Fe rich relative to the parental magma of the diabase. The diabase sills crystallized from an evolved basaltic liquid controlled by cotectic crystallization of plagioclase and lesser olivine and pyroxene.The emplacement of dense olivine phyric picritic magmas early in the sequence, followed by later voluminous compositionally evolved magmas of lower density suggests the development of a crustal density filter effect as the igneous event reached a peak. Delamination of the crust-mantle interface may have resulted in the transition from olivine controlled primitive magma to fractionated magma through the development of crustal underplating. |
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