Sm-Nd systematics and petrology of postorogenic granitoids in the northern Baltic Shield

Abstract

In the northern part of the Baltic Shield, quartz diorites, diorites, and monzodiorites compose massifs of postorogenic granites, in which younger granite phases are restricted to their central parts, and dike rocks (aplites, pegmatites, and granite porphyries) occur in the apical parts. The rocks of the Litsa-Araguba Complex (which is located in the northwestern part of the Kola Peninsula and was examined most thoroughly) compose seven intrusions 850 km2 in total area, which were formed in mesoabyssal and hypabyssal depth facies. The massifs consist of quartz diorites and monzodiorites dated at 1774 ± 9 Ma, diorites, diorite porphyries, and lamprophyres, which are distinguished as phase 1. The porphyritic and equigranular granites, granodiorites, quartz monzonites, granites, alaskites and related vein leucogranites, pegmatites, and granite porphyries of phases 2 (main), 3, and 4 have an age of 1772–1762 Ma. Data obtained on the Sm-Nd systematics of the rocks indicate that their ɛNd(1765) values are close to those for rocks of phases 1, 2, and 3 (from −6.8 to −8.8) and vary from −5.0 to −11.9 for the leucocratic granites of phase 4. The model age values are, respectively, 2.37–2.62 and 2.58–3.23 Ga. These data suggest that the parental melts were of anatectic genesis and were produced by the melting of mostly metasomatically altered garnet granulites from the lower crust. The leucogranites and alaskites of phase 4, which occur as relatively thin bodies in the rocks of the Archean Complex penetrated by the Kola Superdeep Borehole, were derived from a Neoarchean sialic source or produced by the contamination of the parental melts with the material of the Late Archean upper crust. The SHRIMP-II zircon age of the lower crustal migmatized garnet granulites lies within the range of 1831 ± 23 to 1392 ± 21 Ma in the concordia plot. All dates of the rocks are characterized by a unimodal distribution with most values lying within the range of 1650–1800 Ma and approximated by a discordia with T1 = 1750 ± 30 Ma, MSWD = 3.1. This age value can be interpreted as an averaged age of the lower crustal granitization and corresponds, within the errors, to the age of postorogenic granite intrusions in the upper crust.