Abstract
The Pirrit Hills are located in the Ellsworth–Whitmore Mountains of West Antarctica. The Pirrit Hills granite exhibits significant negative Eu anomalies (Eu/Eu* = 0.01~0.25) and a REE tetrad effect indicating intensive magmatic differentiation. Whole-rock Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd geochronologic analysis of the Pirrit Hills granite gave respective ages of 172.8 ± 2.4 Ma with initial 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7065 ± 0.0087 Ma and 169 ± 12 Ma with initial 144Nd/143Nd = 0.512207 ± 0.000017. The isotopic ratio data indicate that the Pirrit Hills granite formed by the remelting of Mesoproterozoic mantle-derived crustal materials. Both chondrite-normalized REE patterns and Sr-Nd isotopic data indicate that the Pirrit Hills granite has geochemical features of chondrite-normalized REE patterns indicating that REE tetrad effects and negative Eu anomalies in the highly fractionated granites were produced from magmatic differentiation under the magmatic-hydrothermal transition system.
Highlights
Rare earth element (REE) signatures in whole-rock samples can help constrain igneous petrogenetic processes
The REE tetrad effect [1] is a specific feature of chondrite-normalized REE patterns, which forms four curved segments with each curve consisting of four REEs (La-Ce-PrNd, Pm-Sm-Eu-Gd, Gd-Tb-Dy-Ho, and Er-Tb-Yb-Lu)
Lee et al [16,17,18] argued that, based on the Rb-Sr, La-Ce, Sm-Nd isotopic system, the REE tetrad patterns were formed by magmatic differentiation rather than hydrothermal alteration
Summary
Rare earth element (REE) signatures in whole-rock samples can help constrain igneous petrogenetic processes. One of the peculiar geochemical features of highly fractionated granite with REE tetrad effect is an extremely large negative Eu anomaly (Eu/Eu* < 0.1).
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