Fluid inclusions, deformation and recrystallization in granite tectonites

Abstract

An investigation has been made of the relationships between tectonic processes and fluid inclusions in quartz from variably deformed and syntectonically recrystallized granitic rocks from the Lachlan Fold Belt, eastern Australia. The quartz contains many fluid inclusions which decorate healed fractures introduced as a result of late-stage brittle deformation. The majority of small inclusions however, are associated with deformation band boundaries and deformation lamellae showing that they have been introduced during or subsequent to ductile deformation. Fluid inclusions disappear from the cores of sub-grains during recovery and before recrystallization, and new inclusions which form along sub-grain boundaries coalesce into stringers. Inclusions are eliminated from both sides of low angle boundaries showing that inclusions leak their contents either through the system of dislocations which accompanies grain interior slip, or by a dissolution-condensation process whereby inclusion contents move by lattice diffusion and condense on the boundaries.