Mid-crustal shear zone formation in granitic rocks: Constraints from quantitative textural and crystallographic preferred orientations analyses

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents quantitative microstructural and crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO) analyses of an Alpine amphibolite facies shear zone developed in the Fibbia metagranite (Gotthard massif, Central Alps). The weakly deformed metagranite and orthogneiss at the margins of the shear zone are characterized by a bulk strain partitioning between harder coarse-grained monomineralic aggregates, derived from quartz and K-feldspar porphyroclasts, and softer fine-grained plagioclase-bearing shear bands. A characteristic feature is a dilatant fracturing of strong quartz and feldspar aggregates. CPOs and microtextures suggest that quartz and K-feldspar aggregates are dynamically recrystallized via dislocation creep while plagioclases show evidences of fluid-assisted diffusive mass transfer and grain boundary sliding. In the mylonite and ultramylonite shear zone core, the porphyroclasts-derived quartz and K-feldspar layers are broken-down to produce a polyphased matrix that is characterized by a homogeneous micron-scale grain size and regular/random distribution. Here, the deformation of the whole aggregate occurs via a fluid-assisted dissolution–precipitation creep and grain boundary sliding, referred as a fluid-assisted granular flow. We propose a model of shear zone formation associated with the nucleation of shear zone followed by lateral widening of the sheared domain. The lateral broadening of the shear zone is driven by (1) the increase in fluid pressure in permeable albite–oligoclase shear bands that results in expulsion of fluids to the shear zone margins and hydraulic fracturing of strong aggregates, and (2) the thermodynamic re-equilibration via metasomatic reactions of the shear zone walls.