Muscovite dehydration melting in Si-rich metapelites: microstructural evidence from trondhjemitic migmatites, Roded, Southern Israel

Abstract

Making a distinction between partial melting and subsolidus segregation in amphibolite facies migmatites is difficult. The only significant melting reactions at lowpressures, either vapour saturated or muscovite dehydration melting, do not produce melanocratic peritectic phases. If protoliths are Si-rich and K-poor, then peritectic sillimanite and K-feldspar will form in scarce amounts, and may be lost by retrograde rehydration. The Roded migmatites of southern Israel (northernmost Arabian Nubian Shield) formed at P = 4.5 ± 1 kbar and T ≤ 700 °C and include Si-rich, K-poor paragneissic paleosome and trondhjemitic leucosomes. The lack of K-feldspar in leucosomes was taken as evidence for the non-anatectic origin of the Roded migmatites (Gutkin and Eyal, Isr J Earth Sci 47:117, 1998). It is shown here that although the Roded migmatites experienced significant post-peak deformation and recrystallization, microstructural evidence for partial melting is retained. Based on these microstructures, coupled with pseudosection modelling, indicators of anatexis in retrograded migmatites are established. Phase diagram modelling of neosomes shows the onset of muscovite dehydration melting at 4.5 kbar and 660 °C, forming peritectic sillimanite and K-feldspar. Adjacent non-melted paleosomes lack muscovite and would thus not melt by this reaction. Vapour saturation was not attained, as it would have formed cordierite that does not exist. Furthermore, vapour saturation would not allow peritectic K-feldspar to form, however K-feldspar is ubiquitous in melanosomes. Direct petrographic evidence for anatexis is rare and includes euhedral plagioclase phenocrysts in leucosomes and quartz-filled embayments in corroded plagioclase at leucosome-melanosome interfaces. In deformed and recrystallized rocks muscovite dehydration melting is inferred by: (1) lenticular K-feldspar enclosed by biotite in melanosomes, (2) abundant myrmekite in leucosomes, (3) muscovite–quartz symplectites after sillimanite in melanosomes and associated with myrmekite in leucosomes. While peritectic K-feldspar formed in melanosomes by muscovite dehydration melting reaction, K-feldspar crystallizing from granitic melt in adjacent leucosome was myrmekitized. Excess potassium was used in rehydration of sillimanite to muscovite.