Contribution to the understanding of the Pinheiro Machado Complex (Dom Feliciano Belt, Brazil): A study of textures, mineral chemistry, and crystallization conditions

Abstract

This article presents textures, mineral chemistry, and geothermobarometric data for the southeastern Pinheiro Machado Complex rocks (PMC), eastern domain of the Dom Feliciano Belt, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The PMC is composed by comagmatic intrusions of quartz diorite, tonalite, and granodiorite with medium‐ to fine‐grained equigranular and medium‐grained inequigranular textures with subordinate alkali‐feldspar macrocrystals. Partial melting features are observed in the comagmatic as melt pools and melt films. Amphibolite xenoliths also occur, presenting sharp‐angled to rounded contacts with the intrusions and evidences of partial assimilation, marked by mafic schlierens. Electron probe microanalyzer punctual analyses were used to classify amphibole, plagioclase, biotite, epidote, and titanite, as well as for the calculations of the crystallization P–T conditions. Amphiboles consist of pargasite for the comagmatic intrusions, and Mg‐hornblende for the amphibolite. Plagioclase ranges from oligoclase to andesine (An15‐40) in both units. Biotite corresponds to annite, with Fe/(Fe + Mg) > 0.3. The epidote has mostly magmatic characteristics in the comagmatic intrusions, with pistacite content 25–30%. Titanite has two distinct textures, titanite I is well formed, subhedral to euhedral, with up to 3 mm; while titanite II is anhedral with size >1 mm and rounded shapes, being both chemically homogeneous. The estimated P–T conditions for the amphibolite crystallization, using plagioclase‐hornblende geothermometer are 650–850°C and 3.62–4.95 kbar, whereas the conditions from the comagmatic intrusions are 714–871°C and 4.44–6.10 kbar. In the mineral phases there is a prevalence in the recrystallization field between subgrain rotation (SGR) and grain boundary migration (GBM) in submagmatic flow. These new data indicate that possibly at the end of PMC crystallization, late magmatic fluids caused re‐equilibrium of mineral phases, mainly in biotite and feldspars. Finally, we suggest that the PMC is the result of continuous and repeated comagmatic intrusions in a continental magmatic arc setting at a depth of 20–30 km in an amphibolitic continental crust.