Neoarchean Granitoids of the Hautavaara Structure, Karelia: Heterogeneous Lithosphere Melting in an Accretionary Orogen

Abstract

The paper presents newly acquired isotope-geochemical and U–Pb isotope zircon dating (SHRIMP) results on four posttectonic granitoid massifs in the southeastern part of the Karelian Granite–Greenstone Province (GGP) in the Fennoscandian Shield. The massifs are located near the Hautavaara Structure, in the southeastern part of the Mesoarchean (3.05–2.85 Ga) Vedlozero–Segozero Greenstone Belt, which is confined to the western margin of the Vodlozero crustal block with a Paleoarchean (TNdDM > 3.2 Ga) prehistory. All four massifs (Hautavaara, Chalka, Shuya, and Nyalmozero) were shown to have similar structural–tectonic settings, were emplaced nearly simultaneously (at 2745–2740 Ma), and display variations in the rock compositions that were predetermined by differences in the composition of the magma sources and the conditions of their derivation. The Hautavaara Massif in the central part of the structure and the Chalka Massif on its western margin are made up of moderately alkaline high-Mg granitoids (sanukitoids), whose initial diorite melts were derived by melting the lithospheric mantle metasomatized in an active-margin setting at 3.00–2.90 Ga. The Shuya granodiorites and Nyalmozero leucogranites, which are confined to the eastern flank of the structure, yield highly fractionated HREE patterns (Dyn/Ybn = 3.5 to 5.14), negative eNdT = –0.9 to –2.8, and were produced by melting a Mesoarchean crustal source at various depths. This source was similar to the 3.05- to 2.90-Ga felsic volcanics in the Hautavaara Structure. The Shuya granodiorites contain elevated Cr and Ni concentrations, suggesting that the melts were generated in the crust with the involvement of mafic magma, which was likely coeval with the primitive sanukitoids. The melting of the continental lithosphere at mantle and crustal levels in the Karelian GGP in the latest Neoarchean are thought to have occurred in an extensional environment during collapse of the collisional orogen, in accordance with the model (Laurent et al., 2014).