Hot subduction in the middle Jurassic and partial melting of oceanic crust in Chilean Patagonia

Abstract

Rare remnants of a Mesozoic subduction high pressure (HP) accretionary complex are exposed on Diego de Almagro Island in Chilean Patagonia. We herein focus on the Lazaro unit, a coherent slice of oceanic crust exposed on this island that has been first affected by high temperature (HT) metamorphism followed by a lower temperature deformation event (LT). Its Pressure-Temperature-time (P-T-t) evolution is reconstructed using field and petrographic observations, phase relations, thermobarometry and geochronology. Remnants of a primary amphibolite to HP granulite-facies event in mafic rocks comprising garnet (with ilmenite exsolutions), diopside, trondhjemitic melt, pargasite, plagioclase±epidote are reported for the first time in neosomes, indicating peak P-T conditions of 1.1–1.3GPa and c. 750°C. This peak T paragenesis has been thoroughly overprinted by a phengite-chlorite-actinolite assemblage during isobaric cooling down to c. 450°C. U-Pb dating of zircon metamorphic rims from a metasedimentary rock yielded a homogeneous age population of 162±2Ma for the HT event. Sm-Nd dating of two peritectic garnet-bearing samples yield ages of 163±2Ma and 163±18Ma for the HT event. Multi-mineral Rb-Sr dating of a metasedimentary rock overprinted by LT deformation suggests retrograde shearing between 120 and 80Ma. Our results show that the HT event in the Lazaro unit took place at around 160–165Ma, shortly before the onset of Patagonian Batholith emplacement. Partial melting of subducted oceanic crust reported in the Lazaro unit is related to the early stages of hot subduction along the Gondwana western margin. The Lazaro unit remained at c. 40km depth along the subduction interface for >80Ma, recording the deformation and long-term cooling of the subduction channel environment until the upper Cretaceous.