Element mobility during continental collision: insights from polymineralic metamorphic vein within UHP eclogite in the Dabie orogen

Abstract

AbstractMetamorphic dehydration and partial melting are two important processes during continental collision. They have significant bearing on element transport at the slab interface under subduction‐zone P–T conditions. Petrological and geochemical insights into the two processes are provided by a comprehensive study of leucocratic veins in ultrahigh‐pressure (UHP) metamorphic rocks. This is exemplified by this study of a polymineralic vein within phengite‐bearing UHP eclogite in the Dabie orogen. The vein is primarily composed of quartz, kyanite, epidote and phengite, with minor accessory minerals such as garnet, rutile and zircon. Primary multiphase solid inclusions occur in garnet and epidote from the both vein and host eclogite. They are composed of quartz ± K‐feldspar ± plagioclase ± K‐bearing glass and exhibit irregular to negative crystal shapes that are surrounded by weak radial cracks. This suggests their precipitation from solute‐rich metamorphic fluid/melt that involved the reaction of phengite breakdown. Zircon U–Pb dating for the vein gave two groups of concordant ages at 217 ± 2 and 210 ± 2 Ma, indicating two episodes of zircon growth in the Late Triassic. The same minerals from the two rocks give consistent δ18O and δD values, suggesting that the vein‐forming fluid was directly derived from the host UHP eclogite. The vein is much richer in phengite and epidote than the host eclogite, suggesting that the fluid is associated with remarkable concentration of such water‐soluble elements as LILE and LREE migration. Garnet and rutile in the vein exhibit much higher contents of HREE (2.2–5.7 times) and Nb–Ta (1.8–2.0 times) than those in the eclogite, indicating that these normally water‐insoluble elements became mobile and then were sunken in the vein minerals. Thus, the vein‐forming agent would be primarily composed of the UHP aqueous fluid with minor amounts of the hydrous melt, which may even become a supercritical fluid to have a capacity to transport not only LILE and LREE but also HREE and HFSE at subduction‐zone metamorphic conditions. Taken together, significant amounts of trace elements were transported by the vein‐forming fluid due to the phengite breakdown inside the UHP eclogite during exhumation of the deeply subducted continental crust.