Metamorphism of an Early Palaeozoic continental margin, western Baie Verte Peninsula, Newfoundland

Abstract

Metamorphic mineral assemblages and textures from Early Palaeozoic continental margin rocks in north‐western Newfoundland indicate that different structural levels have contrasting metamorphic histories. Rocks of the East Pond Metamorphic Suite, which represent the older, structurally lower level of the margin, experienced an early high‐pressure–low‐temperature stage of metamorphism (10–12 kbar minimum, 450–500°C) which produced eclogite in mafic dykes and phengite–garnet assemblages in pelites. This was overprinted by higher temperature–lower pressure amphibolite facies metamorphism (700–750°C, 7–9 kbar minimum) which produced complex symplectic textures in rocks of all compositions. Rocks of the Fleur de Lys Supergroup, which were deposited in the stratigraphically higher levels of the rifted margin, reached pressures of 7–8.5 kbar at about 450°C during the early stages of metamorphism, overprinted by assemblages which indicate maximum temperatures of 550–600°C at about 6.5 kbar. The metamorphic history of both units is interpreted to be the result of thermal relaxation following initial burial of a continental margin by overriding thrust sheets. Since there is no evidence that maximum pressures or temperatures within the Fleur de Lys Supergroup were ever as high as those reached in the East Pond Metamorphic Suite, these rocks may have followed parallel, ‘nested’P–T–t paths, with the more deeply buried East Pond Metamorphic Suite subjected to greater thermal relaxation effects. Quantitative modelling of P–T–t paths is not possible with the present data, owing to both large uncertainties in P–T estimates, and in the time of metamorphism.