Field Evidence of Magma Mixing from Microgranular Enclaves Hosted in Palaeoproterozoic Malanjkhand Granitoids, Central India

Abstract

The Malanjkhand granitoids (MG) pluton (about 1500 sq km) occurs in the Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh. The MG (~2400 Ma) represent an episode of Palaeoproterozoic felsic magmatism in Central India and hosts potential Cu (±Mo±Au) deposits. The enclaves hosted in MG can be broadly classified into two categories: microgranular enclaves (dark-coloured, fine-grained magmatic) and xenoliths of country rocks. The microgranular enclaves (ME) may be rounded, ellipsoidal, discoid, elongated, lenticular or tabular, and their size commonly reaches up to 2 metres across. The ME have sharp and in places, diffuse contacts with their host granitoids. The shape and size of ME indicate contemporaneous flow and mingling of partly crystalline felsic-mafic magmas. Some ME exhibit dark crenulated margins giving them a pillow-like form that has been attributed to undercooling of a ME magma as globules intruded into a granitoid magma. The presence of corroded felsic and mafic minerals (xenocrysts) in ME is interpreted as the result of mechanical transfer during the mafic-felsic magma interaction and mixing event. Mafic minerals (biotite) rim the quartz xenocrysts giving rise to ocellar texture, which exhibit signatures of resorption under hybrid (enclave) magma conditions. All these features suggest an origin for the calc-alkaline intermediate granitoid magma in Malanjkhand involving a magma mixing process.