UPb emplacement and 40Ar/39Ar cooling ages of the eastern Mont-Louis granite massif (Eastern Pyrenees, France)

Abstract

Zircon UPb dating by SIMS of the Mont-Louis granite yields an age of 305±5 Ma, intrepreted to reflect the igneous emplacement age of the massif. It is in agreement with the Hercynian syntectonic character of Pyrenees granite. 40Ar/39Ar on hornblende, biotite and K-feldspar permit, to estimate the massif cooling. A rapid temperature decrease (≈30 °C/Ma) is revealed from Westphalian to Late Stephanian, coeval with the emplacement of a laccolithe in the upper crust. Then, the cooling rate decreases to ≈1 °C/Ma. This would be consistent with a long time residence for the pluton from the Late Palaeozoic to the Early Cainozoic at 6–8 km depth. To cite this article: O. Maurel et al., C. R. Geoscience 336 (2004).