Sources of post-orogenic calcalkaline magmas: The Arrochar and Garabal Hill–Glen Fyne complexes, Scotland

Abstract

The 425 Ma Arrochar and Garabal Hill–Glen Fyne complexes of highland Scotland are examples of post-orogenic magmatism accompanying extensional collapse of an orogen, in this case the Caledonian. The rocks are dominantly high-K series, but range from medium-K to shoshonitic. Mantle upwelling, melting and the intrusion of large volumes of mafic magma into the crust are inferred to have accompanied lithospheric thinning, and to have provided the heat source for melting of young arc crust accreted during the preceding subduction epoch. Fluids evolved from the subducting slab are inferred to have caused high degrees of enrichment in the overlying mantle wedge. Deep in the crust, the mantle-derived, K-rich mafic to intermediate magmas mixed with felsic crustal melts to form the spectrum of magmas intruded in the two complexes. Microgranular enclaves in the granitic rocks represent mafic magmas derived from the enriched mantle and hybridised by reaction, diffusion and mechanical mixing with their host felsic magmas, but they do not form part of the evolutionary series that produced the host magmas. Rather than inheriting its LILE-enriched character directly from crustal melts, or from crustal assimilation by mafic magmas, the high-K series may commonly owe at least part of its potassic character to the involvement of mantle (highly metasomatised by slab-derived fluids) as a major magma source. Enclave suites, though prominent in some granitic rocks should not be assumed to represent magmas that played a significant role in the production of the chemical variations in their host magmas.