Early precambrian trondhjemitic suites in Western Australia and Northwestern Scotland, and the geochemical evolution of shields

Abstract

Sodium-rich trondhjemites and quartz keratophyres, retained as pebbles in Archaean metaconglomerates, represent some of the oldest components (up to 3 by) of the Kalgoorlie System, Western Australia. New determinations indicate high Si, Na, Na/K, Ba/Rb, Ba/K, Sr/Ca+K, Ni, Ni/Mg, and Cr/Mg, and low K, Rb, Rb/Sr, and Y, in comparison to Taylor's (1965) [1] and other' average granites and to Nockolds and Allen's (1953) [2] acid calc-alkaline rocks. Syngeosynclinal quartz keratophyres (2.6 by) studied by O'Beirne (1968) [3] show similar comparisons. Similarly, high-grade acid and intermediate gneisses of the Lewisian, Scotland, have high Na/K, K/Rb, Ba/Rb, Ba/K, Sr/Ca+K, Ni, Ni/Mg, Cr, Cr/Mg, and low K, Rb, Rb/Sr, Y and Y/Ca. Secular decrease in Na/K, K/Rb and Sr/Rb is shown by granite series in Western Australia, Transvaal, Rhodesia and the Canadian Shield. The earliest members of these series compare with sodic acid plutons of island arcs, in particular Fiji, an archipelago showing a pattern of evolution analogous to that of the proposed model (Glikson, 1971) [4]. Evidence for an origin of Archaean sodic granites from below a basic crust is furnished by the abundance of basic xenoliths, by relationships in agmatite-gneiss terrains in Greenland, Scotland, and India, by K levels lower than those of Archaean metasediments, and by low initial 87Sr/ 86Sr ratios. The abundance of euhedral quartz phenocrysts in the quartz keratophyres supports origin through partial melting of eclogite [5]. In high-grade belts, the originally low abundances of K and Rb were accentuated by synmetamorphic depletion, with which the formation of late-stage K-granites may have been associated. The correlation of chemical data enables an insight into spatial and temporal relationships between low- and high-grade early Precambrian terrains, and on the geochemical evolution of shields.