A new occurrence of garnetiferous skarn rocks in Saudi Arabia: a case study from Bahrah area, Jeddah–Makkah Al Mukaramah highway

Abstract

Metacarbonate rocks (including marble and skarn deposits) at Bahrah area are confined to a Precambrian island-arc suite made up mostly of massive basalts and volcaniclastics aligned in a NE-trending belt. The marbles are either pure (almost made up of calcite) or contain considerable amounts of tremolite, actinolite, epidote, and diopside. Garnet-bearing rocks at Bahrah area are classified into garnetiferous marble and skarn calc-silicate assemblages that are described here for the first time. The calc-silicates become more abundant when the marble becomes interbedded with foliated metabasalt. Such contact is delineated by an epidote zone of variable thickness. Microscopically, the skarns are enriched in Ca-bearing minerals such as grossular garnet, epidote, titanite, diopside, and augitic salite. There are evidence that calc-silicate skarns were formed due to a thermal effect of a concealed underground shallow granitic intrusion. The basaltic rocks furnished Mg2+, Fe2+, Ti4+, and Al3+ that were first concentrated in the epidote zone. This was followed by pervasive replacement of epidote by large idiomorphic garnet (grossularite) that attains up to ∼1.5 cm wide. It is evident that diopside is earlier than garnet with no replacement fabrics between the two minerals. Two types of titanite (sphene) can be distinguished: The first is secondary in the metabasalt host where titanite develops after titanomagnetite during regional metamorphism (i.e., metamorphic). On the other hand, the second type of titanite is found in the garnet-bearing calc-silicate skarn where it is typically euhedral with no link to any opaque phase and it is believed to be formed due to the event of superimposed thermal metamorphism (i.e., metasomatic). There are several evidence of the thermal metamorphic effect such as distinct granoblastic and annealing textures and K-metasomatism and formation of phlogopite at the expense of tremolite in the marble, in addition to poikiloblastic hornblende in the metabasalt host with distinct recrystallization. Also, there are some evidence of shearing such as brecciation along microshear planes, microfolding, introduction of fine euhedral pyrite, and presence of injected silica postdating crystallization of garnet in the calc-silicates.