The Pleasant Bay Layered Gabbro--Diorite, Coastal Maine: Ponding and Crystallization of Basaltic Injections into a Silicic Magma Chamber |
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| Authors: | WIEBE ROBERT A |
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| Institution: | Department of Geosciences, Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17604 |
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| Abstract: | The Pleasant Bay layered gabbro–diorite intrusion, locatedon the coast of Maine between Bar Harbor and Machias, is roughlyoval in plan, measuring 12 km by 20 km. Gravity data, contactrelations, and internal layering suggest that it is basinformin structure with a maximum thickness of {small tilde}3 km.Its roof and upper parts have been lost through erosion. Whereit is in contact with underlying granite, the base of the intrusiontypically consists of strongly chilled gabbro with convex-downwardlobate forms, suggesting that the granite was incompletely solidifiedwhen the gabbro was emplaced. Roughly 90% of the exposed rocksare weakly layered gabbro and mafic diorite, both of which varywidely in grain-size and texture. Layers and lenses of medium-grainedleucocratic diorite to granodiorite are widely intercalatedwith the chilled mafic rocks and commonly contain partly digestedmafic inclusions; they also commonly contain zones of pillow-likebodies of gabbro chilled on all margins. The dioritic rocksare consistently topped by gabbroic layers with chilled lobatebases and commonly appear to feed granitic pipes and diapirsinto overlying gabbro. Much of the intrusion can be subdividedinto hundreds of macrorhythmic units (from 1 to 100 m thick)consisting of basally chilled gabbro that grades upward to dioriteor highly evolved leucocratic silicic cumulates. Basaltic dikesare abundant both in the underlying granite and in the layeredgabbro–diorites; they have appropriate compositions tobe feeders for chilled gabbroic layers in the Pleasant Bay intrusion. The layered rocks of the Pleasant Bay intrusion record hundredsof basaltic injections into a chamber with resident silicicmagma. Small injections produced chilled gabbroic layers andpillows within silicic cumulates. Larger infusions of basalticmagma produced temporary compositional stratification and episodesof double-diffusive convection within the chamber. Althoughfractional crystallization produced compositional variationin much of the gabbro, units that grade from chilled gabbroat the base to highly silicic cumulates at the top provide cumulaterecords of magma stratification and hybridization along a double-diffusiveinterface between basaltic and silicic magmas. The intrusionprovides a superb plutonic record of events that have oftenbeen inferred for silicic eruptive centers. Mafic–siliciclayered intrusions comparable with the Pleasant Bay are morewidespread than has generally been appreciated. |
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