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Title: Enrichment of trace elements in garnet amphibolites from a paleo-subduction zone: Catalina schist, southern California

Journal Article · · Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta; (USA)
 [1];  [2]
  1. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (USA)
  2. Geological Survey, Reston, VA (USA)

The abundance, P-T stability, solubility, and element-partitioning behaviour of minerals such as rutile, garnet, sphene, apatite, zircon, zoisite, and allanite are critical variables in models for mass transfer from the slab to the mantle wedge in deep regions of subduction zones. The influence of these minerals on the composition of subduction-related magmas has been inferred (and disputed) from inverse modelling of the geochemistry of island-arc basalt, or by experiment. Although direct samples of the dehydration + partial-melting region of a mature subduction zone have not been reported from subduction complexes, garnet amphibolites from melanges of circumpacific and Caribbean blueschist terranes reflect high T (>600{degree}C) conditions in shallower regions. Such rocks record geochemical processes that affected deep-seated, high-T portions of paleo-subduction zones. In the Catalina Schist, a subduction-zone metamorphic terrane of southern California, metasomatized and migmatitic garnet amphibolites occur as blocks in a matrix of meta-ultramafic rocks. This mafic and ultramafic complex may represent either slab-derived material accreted to the mantle wedge of a nascent subduction zone or a portion of a shear zone closely related to the slab-mantle wedge contact, or both. The trace-element geochemistry of the complex and the distribution of trace element among the minerals of garnet amphibolites were studied by INAA, XRF, electron microprobe, and SEM.

OSTI ID:
6702731
Journal Information:
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta; (USA), Vol. 53:12; ISSN 0016-7037
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English