Petrological, geochemical and geodynamic evolution of the Wadi Al-Baroud granitoids, north Arabian-Nubian shield, Egypt

Abstract

The Wadi Al-Baroud area, in Egypt's Eastern Desert, exposes Neoproterozoic rocks of the Arabian-Nubian Shield (ANS), including both syntectonic granitoids (granodiorite and tonalite) and post-collisional granites. We present field work, petrographic study, mineral compositions, and whole-rock geochemistry results from these granitoids and discuss their petrogenesis, magmatic sources, evolution, and tectonic significance. The syntectonic granitoids show subduction affinity and an anomalous steep trend of K-enrichment that suggests assimilation of a granitic component during their evolution. The post-collisional granites form two plutons, on opposite sides of Wadi Al-Baroud, named here the Ras Baroud pluton (RBP) and the Abu Hawis pluton (AHP). They intruded the syntectonic granitoids with sharp intrusive contacts. The post-collisional plutons are devoid of mafic enclaves and are cut by very few dikes. They dominantly consist of biotite monzogranite that grades into muscovite monzogranite. The latter lithology hosts Nb-Ta oxide minerals (columbite, tantalite, and wodginite) displaying a variety of textural and compositional features. The cores are primary columbite-(Mn), whereas rims are overgrown or partly replaced by tantalite-(Fe) and wodginite due to late interactions with highly fractionated residual melt. The highly-evolved AHP and RBP granites are typical of the post-collisional granitoids of the ANS, including high concentrations of rare earth elements (REE), Ta, Hf, Nb, Zr, Y, and Rb; elevated ratios of Ga/Al; and low contents of Sr, CaO, and MgO. Their geochemistry suggests that the parental magma of both plutons formed from an I-type tonalitic source rock that underwent partial melting during the thermal disturbance that followed a lithospheric delamination event during the post-collisional stage of the East African Orogeny. The variations in major oxide and trace element contents among individual samples of the AHP and the RBP cannot be explained as a liquid line of descent due to fractional crystallization; rather we interpret them as sampling variable proportions of an evolved liquid and the solid crystals in equilibrium with that liquid.