Nanogranitoid inclusions with grandidierite in mafic granulite from Austhovde, Lützow-Holm Complex, East Antarctica

Abstract

Grandidierite, (Mg,Fe)Al3O2(BO3)SiO4, was found in a garnet-clinopyroxene-ilmenite-rich mafic granulite from Austhovde in the Late Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian Lützow-Holm Complex (LHC), East Antarctica, the first reported occurrence of this borosilicate in a mafic granulite. It occurs in one of the many nanogranitoid inclusions (NIs) in garnet. Quartz, sodic plagioclase, myrmekite, K-feldspar, epidote and biotite are also found only as inclusions in garnet. Garnet porphyroblasts show marked compositional zoning: Ca increases and Mg decreases from the core to rim with little change in Fe and Mn contents except for the outermost rim. Anorthite content of inclusion plagioclase increases from core to rim of host garnet in parallel with increase in garnet Ca towards the rim. This together with the distinctly different mineral assemblages within and exterior to garnet porphyroblasts suggests that partial melting took place and produced melts were extracted leaving a mafic and calcic restite. Partial melting also occurred locally in garnet porphyroblasts consuming different hydrous mineral inclusions to produce various NIs ranging from K-feldspar-rich to K-feldspar-free. Subsequent decompression at high temperatures resulted breakdown of garnet to orthopyroxene + calcic plagioclase with further consumption of quartz, such that none remained in the matrix of the granulite. Grandidierite may have formed by a reaction between a trapped boron-bearing aluminous granitic melt and host garnet upon cooling.