Abstract
Equilibration between melt and solid is inhibited by rapid melt extraction and by restricted equilibration (armouring, slow dissolution). When segregation occurs by channelised migration along high-porosity pathways, melt migration is more rapid than trace element diffusion rates in silicates and faster than accessory phase dissolution rates. Evidence for channelised flow and deformation-enhanced melt segregation into boudin necks, fractures and micro-shears at low melt fractions is present in the Moine Kirtomy Migmatitie Suite (KMS) in Sutherland, Scotland. Melt migration distances are on a metre to tens of metres scale. Concordant leucosomes in stromatic migmatities in the KMS have low Zr contents, low LREE (light rare-earth element) and H (heavy) REE contents and positive Eu anomalies. REE patterns of this type can be produced by removal of leucosome before complete equilibration with source due to the inhibited dissolution of LREE- and HREE-bearing accessory phases in water-undersaturated melts. Melting in the KMS, however, occurred at or near the wet granite solidus, leaving biotite as a residual phase. Detailed back-scattered electron imaging shows that REE-bearing accessory phases remained as residual phases, and were concentrated in the melanosome and at the melanosome-leucosome boundary. Irregularly shaped patches of diatexite contain a small proportion of excess Zr, consistent with entrainment of melanosome-schlieren enriched in zircon. These data indicate that deformation-enhanced melt extraction led to the rapid migration of small melt fractions from the melting site on a time-scale less than that required to saturate the melt in Zr. Leucosomes were thus prevented from equilibrating with accessory phases before extraction.
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