Fluid characteristics of retrogressed eclogites and mafic granulites from the Cambrian Gondwana suture zone in southern India

Abstract

Eclogite-facies rocks and high-pressure granulites provide windows to the deeper parts of subduction zones and the root of mountain chains, carrying potential records of fluids associated with subduction-accretion-collision tectonics. Here, we report petrological and fluid inclusion data on retrogressed eclogite and high-pressure granulite samples from Sittampundi, Kanji Malai and Perundarai in southern India. These rocks occur within the trace of the Cambrian collisional suture which marks the final phase of amalgamation of the Gondwana supercontinent. The garnet–clinopyroxene assemblage in the eclogites preserves relict omphacite, whereas the high-pressure granulites are characterized by an assemblage of garnet and clinopyroxene in the absence of omphacite and with minor plagioclase, orthopyroxene, and quartz. Phase relations computed for the eclogite assemblage yield peak P–T conditions of 19 kbar and 1,010°C. The mafic granulites also preserve the memory of high to ultrahigh-temperature metamorphism followed by an isothermal decompression. Systematic fluid inclusion optical, microthermometric and laser Raman spectroscopic studies were conducted in garnet and plagioclase from the eclogite–high pressure granulite suite. The results suggest that the early fluids were a mixture of CO2, CH4 and N2 probably derived from decarbonation and devolatilization reactions in a subduction setting during the prograde stage. The later generation inclusions, which constitute the dominant category in all the samples studied, are characterized by a near-pure CO2 composition with moderate to high densities (up to 1.154 g/cm3). The highest density fluid inclusions recorded in this study occur within the mafic granulites from Sittampundi (0.968–1.154 g/cm3) and Kanji Malai (1.092–1.116 g/cm3). In some cases, carbonate minerals such as dolomite and calcite are associated with the CO2-rich fluid inclusions. The composition and densities of the later generation fluids closely match with those of the CO2-bearing fluid inclusions reported from ultrahigh-temperature granulites occurring proximal to the eclogite–high pressure granulite suite within this suture zone, and suggest a common tectonic link for the fluid regime. We evaluate the fluid characteristics associated with convergent plate margin processes and propose that the early aqueous fluids probably associated with the eclogites were consumed during the formation of the retrograde hydrous mineral assemblages, whereas the fluid regime of the high-pressure and ultrahigh-temperature granulites was mostly CO2-dominated. The tectonic setting of the rocks along a collisional suture marking the trace along which crustal blocks were welded through subduction–collision process is in favor of a model involving the derivation of CO2 from sub-lithospheric sources such as a carbonated tectosphere invaded by hot asthenosphere, or underplated mafic magmas.