Cretaceous high-pressure metamorphism and low pressure overprint in the Sistan Suture Zone, eastern Iran: Additional temperature estimates for eclogites, geological significance of U-Pb zircon ages and Rb-Sr constraints on the timing of exhumation

Abstract

The Sistan Suture Zone, eastern Iran, includes blocks and lenses of eclogite-, blueschist- and/or epidote amphibolite-facies rocks that provide an excellent opportunity to examine the exhumation history of oceanic HP/LT rocks and their retrograde derivatives. Zr-in-rutile thermometry of eclogites corroborates previous interpretations suggesting metamorphic temperatures of ca. 550–600°C during the HP stage in the Sistan area. Flat HREE distribution patterns and Ti-in-zircon temperatures of ca. 500–600°C document that zircon in eclogite is of metamorphic origin. REE patterns of zircon from felsic meta-igneous rocks do not allow to distinguish between a magmatic or metamorphic origin, but relatively low temperatures indicated by Ti-in-zircon thermometry (ca. 500–600°C) and the close similarity of zircon (U–Pb) and white mica (Rb–Sr, Ar–Ar) ages favor a metamorphic zircon origin. Previously published isotopic ages of the felsic rocks cannot unambiguously be linked to the eclogite- and/or blueschist-facies P–T conditions due to the absence of unequivocal mineralogical and petrological evidence. Instead, these rocks may record contemporaneous metamorphic processes that took place at a different depth within the subduction complex, or may indicate active ridge subduction and/or melt formation in the subduction zone at relatively low pressures. Biotite-based internal Rb–Sr isochrons of newly dated epidote amphibolite and biotite-albite gneisses indicate ages of ca. 74–80Ma, either dating fluid-infiltration-induced formation of biotite during relatively fast uplift, or the time of final passage through the effective biotite closure temperature. Rb–Sr ages of phengite from both an epidote amphibolite and a biotite-albite gneiss yield ages that correspond to the HP/LT stage. This outcome, combined with textural evidence for derivation from eclogitic precursors documents that white mica ages of some strongly overprinted Sistan rocks are compromised by inheritance and do not record later exhumation.