Oxygen isotope evidence for shallow emplacement of Adirondack anorthosite

Abstract

Oxygen isotopic analysis of wollastonites from the Willsboro Mine, Adirondack Mountains, New York reveals a 400-ft wide zone of 18O depletion at anorthosite contacts. Values of δ18O vary more sharply with distance and are lower (to −1.3) than any yet reported for a granulite fades terrain. Exchange with circulating hot meteoric water best explains these results and implies that the anorthosite was emplaced at relatively shallow depths, <10 km, in marked contrast to the depth of granulite fades metamorphism (23 km). These 18O depletions offer the first strong evidence for shallow emplacement of anorthosite within the Grenville Province and suggest that regional metamorphism was a later and tectonically distinct event.