Two Contrasting Fabric Patterns of Olivine Observed in Garnet and Spinel Peridotite from a Mantle-derived Ultramafic Mass Enclosed in Felsic Granulite, the Moldanubian Zone, Czech Republic

Abstract

The Mohelno peridotite is a medium-sized ultramafic body (2 km × 4 km in size) enclosed in the Gföhl granulites in the eastern part of the Bohemian Massif. It consists mainly of coarse spinel peridotite (harzburgite and dunite); garnet peridotite occurs only in the sheared and deformed margins of the body. To decipher the origin and history of this mantle-derived peridotite, we determined the mineral chemistry by electron microprobe analysis and olivine fabric patterns by the electron backscattered diffraction method for each rock type. We found two distinct types of olivine fabric (crystal-preferred orientation; CPO) in the peridotite, which can be correlated with the mineralogy and thermal history of each. The olivine CPO in coarse-grained spinel peridotite shows a strong concentration of [100] slightly oblique to the lineation and [010] and [001] girdles normal to the lineation (which is the so-called {0kl}[100] pattern typical of medium-temperature deformation). Olivine in coarse-grained garnet peridotite, on the other hand, shows a strong concentration of [010] normal to the foliation and a concentration of [100] parallel to the lineation (which is the so-called (010)[100] pattern typical of high-temperature deformation). These fabric patterns become diffuse as the grain size is reduced for each mineralogical type. We interpret the development of these contrasting fabric patterns and mineralogical types based on the pressure–temperature history of each rock type determined by applying published geothermometers and geobarometers to the constituent minerals. Starting from a high-temperature (>1200°C) spinel peridotite, during exhumation and cooling in contact with surrounding granulites, the marginal part of the body was transformed to garnet peridotite, whereas the interior remained in the spinel-peridotite facies because cooling was slower inside the body. Because of the slow cooling and continuous deformation in the interior of the body, the original high-temperature fabric pattern in the spinel peridotite was converted to a lower-temperature type. The high-temperature fabric was preserved only at the margin of the body where cooling was more rapid. Reduction of grain size that occurred during later, low-temperature, deformation partly obliterated the high-temperature fabric patterns for both garnet and spinel peridotites. The initial rapid cooling at high temperatures associated with deformation probably occurred after the mantle peridotite was emplaced within the crustal granulites, which implies that the spinel- to garnet-peridotite transformation took place in the continental crust.