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Oxygen isotope evidence for two-stage water-rock interactions of the Nianzishan A-type granite in NE China

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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

The oxygen isotope ratios of whole-rock, common rock-forming minerals and zircon from Mesozoic A-type granitic pluton at Nianzishan in northeastern China were analyzed by the conventional BrF5 method and the laser-probe technique, respectively. Both whole-rock and rock-forming minerals show large δ18O variations up to 5.5‰ with significant oxygen isotope disequilibrium between zircon and the other minerals, whereas the δ18O values of zircon are tightly clustered between 3.12‰ and 4.19‰ and thus lower than the normal-mantle δ18O values. These results indicate that the Nianzishan A-type granite experienced two-stage water-rock interactions subsequentially. The remarkably low zircon δ18O values are genetically due to seawater exchange with granite protolith in the first stage, and the oxygen isotope disequilibrium fractionations between zircon and rock-forming minerals are caused by meteoric-hydrothermal alteration in the second stage. It is inferred that the18O-depleted A-type granitic magma was derived from partial melting of subducted lower oceanic crust which was isotopically exchanged with seawater at high temperatures. In the process of granite emplacement into the upper crust, meteoric-hydrothermal circulation was triggered to overprint crystallizing granite under subsolidus conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Chemical Geodynamics, University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, China

    Chunsheng Wei, Yongfei Zheng & Zifu Zhao

  2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin, WI53706, Madison, USA

    J. W. Valley

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  1. Chunsheng Wei
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  2. Yongfei Zheng
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  3. Zifu Zhao
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  4. J. W. Valley
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Correspondence to Chunsheng Wei.

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Wei, C., Zheng, Y., Zhao, Z. et al. Oxygen isotope evidence for two-stage water-rock interactions of the Nianzishan A-type granite in NE China. Chin.Sci.Bull. 46, 727–731 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03187208

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03187208

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