Ordovician eclogites from the Chinese Beishan: implications for the tectonic evolution of the southern Altaids

Abstract

Numerous lenses of eclogite occur in a belt of augen orthogneisses in the Gubaoquan area in the southern Beishan orogen, an eastern extension of the Tianshan orogen. With detailed petrological data and phase relations, modelled in the system NCFMASHTO with thermocalc, a quantitative P–T path was estimated and defined a clockwise P–T path that showed a near isothermal decompression from eclogite facies (>15.5 kbar, 700–800 °C, omphacite + garnet) to high-pressure granulite facies (12–14 kbar, 700–750 °C, clinopyroxene + sodic plagioclase symplectitic intergrowths around omphacite), low-pressure granulite facies (8–9.5 kbar, ∼700 °C, orthopyroxene + clinopyroxene + plagioclase symplectites and coronas surrounding garnet) and amphibolite facies (5–7 kbar, 600–700 °C, hornblende + plagioclase symplectites). The major and trace elements and Sm–Nd isotopic data suggest that most of the Beishan eclogite samples had a protolith of oceanic crust with geochemical characteristics of an enriched or normal mid-ocean ridge basalt. The U–Pb dating of the Beishan eclogites indicates an Ordovician age of c. 467 Ma for the eclogite facies metamorphism. An 39Ar/40Ar age of c. 430 Ma for biotite from the augen gneiss corresponds to the time of retrograde metamorphism. The combined data from geological setting, bulk composition, clockwise P–T path and geochronology support a model in which the Beishan eclogites started as oceanic crust in the Palaeoasian Ocean, which was subducted to eclogite depths in the Ordovician and exhumed in the Silurian. The eclogite-bearing gneiss belt marks the position of a high-pressure Ordovician suture zone, and the calculated clockwise P–T path defines the progression from subduction to exhumation.