Dating the exhumation of UHP rocks and associated crustal melting in the Norwegian Caledonides

Abstract

U–Pb and Rb–Sr dating was undertaken in combination with P–T estimates to (1) constrain the time of ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) eclogite formation in the Stadlandet UHP province of Norway, (2) date later crustal melting–migmatization of the eclogite country gneisses, and (3) temporally trace post-migmatite cooling and retrogression under amphibolite facies metamorphic conditions. In contrast to earlier U–Pb studies which used accessory minerals from the gneisses, we focused on the direct dating of minerals defining the HP assemblage. For the eclogite, rutile and omphacite fractions were analyzed for U–Pb, and from an adjacent migmatite leucosome titanites and K-feldspar. For Rb–Sr dating, phengite was measured for the eclogite, and biotite for two leucosome layers of the migmatite–eclogite complex. A U–Pb age of 389±7 (2σ) Ma is obtained if the full set of 12 rutile and five omphacite analyses is regressed (MSWD: 16), and 389±2 Ma for those nine data which strictly satisfy isochron conditions (MSWD: 0.78). The 389-Ma age is interpreted to date equilibration and freezing of the eclogite paragenesis at maximum temperatures of 770 °C, reached during decompression to 1.8 GPa. Decompression from 2.8 to 1.8 GPa occurred in the partial melting domain of granitic crust, with the migmatites being dated at 375±6 Ma by titanite and K-feldspar from an eclogite-adjacent granitic leucosome. This titanite age also shows that the U–Pb chronometer in rutile is very robust to high temperatures—it remained a closed system for at least 14 million years, at temperatures in excess to 650 °C. After decompression and migmatization, exhumation is accompanied by rapid cooling to reach the 300 °C isograde by 357± 9 Ma, determined by a biotite isochron for a leucosome in a slightly shallower structural level. In considering that the time of maximum pressure is bracketed by early zircon crystallization during subduction and later omphacite–rutile equilibration in the eclogites, an exhumation rate of 5 mm/year is deduced for initial exhumation, occurring between 394 and 389 Ma. For subsequent cooling from 770 to 600 °C, we obtain a rate of 2.3±1.3 mm/year. First stages of exhumation most likely occurred under an overall compressional regime, whereas Devonian basin formation is associated to detachment movements during 389–375 Ma exhumation. This period of extension is followed by a much younger, decoupled thermal phase at 327±5 Ma, occurring under static conditions within very restricted zones, most likely in association with the circulation of fluid phases along old discontinuities. Initial isotopic signatures of Sr and Pb substantiate Paleo- to Meso-Proterozoic crust formation times of the Stadlandet UHP province precursor lithologies.