Source of coesite inclusions within inherited magmatic zircon from Sulu UHP rocks, eastern China, and their bearing for fluid–rock interaction and SHRIMP dating

Abstract

AbstractThe 5‐km deep Chinese Continental Scientific Drilling Main Hole penetrated a sequence of ultrahigh pressure (UHP)‐metamorphic rocks consisting mainly of eclogite, gneiss and garnet‐peridotite with minor schist and quartzite. Zircon separates taken from thin layers of schist and gneiss within eclogite were investigated. Cathodoluminescence images of zircon grains show that they have oscillatory zoned magmatic cores and unzoned to patchy zoned metamorphic rims. Zircon rims contain rare coesite and calcite inclusions whereas cores contain inclusions of both low‐P minerals (e.g. feldspar, biotite and quartz) and coesite and other eclogite‐facies minerals such as phengite and jadeite. The zircon cores give highly variable 206Pb/238U ages ranging from 760 to 431 Ma for schist and from 698 to 285 Ma for gneiss, and relatively high but variable Th/U ratios (0.16–1.91). We suggest that the coesite and other eclogite facies mineral inclusions in zircon cores were not magmatic but formed through metasomatic processes caused by fluids during UHP metamorphism, and that the fluids contain components of SiO2, Al2O3, K2O, FeO, MgO, Na2O and H2O. Metasomatism of the Sulu UHP rocks during continental subduction to mantle depths has partly altered magmatic zircon cores and reset isotopic systems. This study provides key evidence that mineral inclusions within magmatic zircon domains are not unequivocal indicators of the formation conditions of the respective domain. This finding leads us to conclude that the routine procedure for dating of metamorphic events solely based on the occurrence of mineral inclusions in zoned zircon could be misleading and the data should be treated with caution.