Ultra‐high‐pressure metamorphism of carbonate rocks in the Dabie Mountains, central China

Abstract

Abstract Widespread ultra‐high‐P assemblages including coesite, quartz pseudomorphs after coesite, aragonite, and calcite pseudomorphs after aragonite in marble, gneiss and phengite schist are present in the Dabie Mountains eclogite terrane. These assemblages indicate that the ultra‐high‐P metamorphic event occurred on a regional scale during Triassic collision between the Sino‐Korean and Yangtze cratons. Marble in the Dabie Mountains is interlayered with coesite‐bearing eclogite and gneiss and as blocks of various size within gneiss. Discontinuous boudins of eclogite occur within marble layers. Marble contains an ultra‐high‐P assemblage of calcite/aragonite, dolomite, clinopyroxene, garnet, phengite, epidote, rutile and quartz/coesite. Coesite, quartz pseudomorphs after coesite, aragonite and calcite pseudomorphs after aragonite occur as fine‐grained inclusions in garnet and omphacite. Phengites contain about 3.6 Si atoms per formula unit (based on 11 oxygens). Similar to the coesite‐bearing eclogite, marble exhibits retrograde recrystallization under amphibolite–greenschist facies conditions generated during uplift of the ultra‐high‐P metamorphic terrane. Retrograde minerals are fine grained and replace coarse‐grained peak metamorphic phases. The most typical replacements are: symplectic pargasitic hornblende + epidote after garnet, diopside + plagioclase (An18) after omphacite, and fibrous phlogopite after phengite. Ferroan pargasite + plagioclase, and actinolite formed along grain boundaries between garnet and calcite, and calcite and quartz, respectively.The estimated peak P–T conditions for marble are comparable to those for eclogite: garnet–clinopyroxene geothermometry yields temperatures of 630–760°C; the garnet–phengite thermometer gives somewhat lower temperatures. The minimum pressure of peak metamorphism is 27 kbar based on the occurrence of coesite. Such estimates of ultra‐high‐P conditions are consistent with the coexistence of grossular‐rich garnet + rutile, and the high jadeite content of omphacite in marble. The fluid for the peak metamorphism was calculated to have a very low XCO2 (<0.03). The P–T conditions for retrograde metamorphism were estimated to be 475–550°C at <7 kbar.