A stable isotope study of serpentinization and metamorphism in the Highland Border Suite, Scotland, U.K.

Abstract

D H and 18 O 16 O ratios have been measured for whole-rock samples and mineral separates from the mafic and ultramatic rocks of the Cambro-Ordovician Highland Border Suite. The H- and O- isotopic compositions of these rocks record individual stages in a relatively complex 500 Myr old hydrothermal/metamorphic history. Lizardite serpentinites (δD ∼ − 105‰; δ 18O ∼ + 6.2‰) record a premetamorphic history and indicate that parent harzburgites, dunites, and pyroxenites were serpentinized through low-temperature interaction with meteoric waters during cooling. The other rocks of the Highland Border Suite record subsequent interaction with metamorphic fluids. Amphibolite facies hornblende schists were produced through thrust-related (dynamothermal) metamorphism of spilitic pillow lavas. During dehydration, D-enriched fluids were driven off from the spilites thus leaving the hornblende schists to equilibrate with a relatively D-depleted internal fluid reservoir (δD ∼ − 45‰). The expelled D-enriched fluids may have mixed with more typical Dalradian metamorphic waters which then exchanged with the remaining mafic rocks and lizardite serpentinites during greenschist facies regional metamorphism to produce antigorite serpentinites (δD ∼ − 62‰; δ 18O ∼ + 8‰) and greenschist metaspilites (δD ∼ − 57‰; δ 18O ∼ + 7.3‰) with similar H- and O-isotopic compositions. Serpentinites which have been only partially metamorphosed show intermediate H-isotopic compositions between that of metamorphic antigorite (δD ∼ − 62‰) and non-metamorphic lizardite δD ∼ − 105‰) end members.