The Archaean Atâ intrusive complex (Atâ tonalite), north-east Disko Bugt, West Greenland

Abstract

The 2800 Ma Atâ intrusive complex (elsewhere referred to as ‘Atâ granite’ or ‘Atâ tonalite’), which occupies an area of c. 400 km2 in the area north-east of Disko Bugt, was emplaced into grey migmatitic gneisses and supracrustal rocks. At its southern border the Atâ complex is cut by younger granites. The complex is divided by a belt of supracrustal rocks into a western, mainly tonalitic part, and an eastern part consisting mainly of granodiorite and trondhjemite. The ‘eastern complex’ is a classical pluton. It is little deformed in its central part, displaying well-preserved igneous layering and local orbicular textures. Near its intrusive contact with the overlying supracrustal rocks the rocks become foliated, with foliation parallel to the contact. The Atâ intrusive complex has escaped much of the later Archaean and early Proterozoic deformation and metamorphism that characterises the gneisses to the north and to the south; it belongs to the best-preserved Archaean tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite intrusions in Greenland.