Rheological weakening of high-grade mylonites during low-temperature retrogression: The exhumed continental Ailao Shan-Red River fault zone, SE Asia

Abstract

We present a detailed case study of an exhumed continental strike-slip fault zone, the Ailao Shan-Red River (ASRR) strike-slip fault zone, to investigate how deformation promotes strain localization, and how the weak second phases and fluids trigger rheological weakening during retrogression near the ductile to brittle transition during exhumation. Along the ASRR strike-slip fault zone, in the Diancang Shan (DCS) metamorphic massif, high-temperature ductile deformation (D1) pervasively occurred during shearing and exhumation since late Oligocene. The high-temperature microstructures and textures are in part or entirely altered by subsequent low-temperature shearing (D2) since late Miocene, which is under the conditions of frictional-viscous transition of K-feldspar (ca. 450°C) during further exhumation to the upper crustal levels. The formation of D2 microstructures and shear bands overprinted high-temperature intracrystalline plasticity phases (D1) in mylonitic rocks. Depending on the main rock-forming minerals, the results also demonstrate that the brittle–ductile transition involves a combination of different deformation mechanisms and possible rheological paths. In quartz-rich rocks, quartz was deformed in the dislocation creep regime and records transition of microfabrics and slip systems during decreasing temperature, which lasted until retrogression related to exhumation. As a result, grain-size reduction associated with fluids circulating within the ASRR strike-slip fault zone at brittle–ductile transition leads to reaction and texture weakening. Rheological weakening is the consequence of the syntectonic deformation, fluid flow, reaction softening, reaction creep and textural softening. The hydrous fluids resulted in hydration of silicates. Decompression occurred during shearing and as a result of tectonic exhumation. All these results demonstrate that the exhumation through the ductile to ductile-brittle transition involves a combination of different deformation mechanisms, rheological transition features and feedbacks between deformation, decreasing temperature and fluids in the ASRR fault zone.