Assimilation of peridotite in zoned calc-alkaline plutonic complexes: evidence from the Big Jim complex, Washington Cascades

Abstract

The Big Jim complex is a concentrically zoned ultramafic to felsic plutonic complex which intruded the pelitic Chiwaukum schist. Most of the major plutonic rock types (from websterite through hornblendite, gabbronorite, hornblende gabbro and diorite, to granodiorite) enclose harzburgite and metaperidotite xenoliths similar to foliated metaperidotite lenses included in the Chiwaukum schist. The larger xenoliths preserve tectonite fabrics. All have Mg#'s (mole fraction MgO/(MgO+FeO*)) from 0.90 to 0.89, the same as those of Chiwaukum metaperidotites, and distinctly different from undeformed Big Jim dunite (Mg#'s 0.84 to 0.82) and websterite (0.82 to 0.78). Contact relations indicate widespread, stepwise replacement of harzburgite by pyroxenite, hornblendite, gabbro and diorite. Thermodynamic modelling using an expanded regular solution model for silicate liquids (Ghiorso 1985; Ghiorso and Carmichael 1985) predicts that reaction between olivine (Fo90) and a liquid with the composition of Big Jim diorite +1.5 wt% H2O, at 1,100° C and 3 kb, would produce websterite (Mg#'s 0.75 to 0.81) and dunite (0.79 to 0.82). This process is exothermic and results in a negative change in volume, since it increases total solid mass. Under conditions of decreasing temperature, modelled crystal fractionation with assimilation of olivine reproduces important features of the chemical variation observed in the Big Jim complex where crystal fractionation alone fails. The Big Jim complex has affinities with other ultramafic to felsic plutonic complexes such as the Bear Mountain complex (Snoke et al. 1981, 1982) and the Emigrant Gap complex (James 1971). The latter have wehrlite and clinopyroxenite, rather than websterite, but both have concentric zoning, with olivine-bearing rock types surrounded by successively more felsic pyroxenite, gabbro and diorite. In general, concentrically zoned complexes of this type may form where magma reacts with mantle-derived wall rock or ultramafic cumulates. Assimilation of peridotite in fractionating magma may be important in subduction-related magmatic arcs.