Emplacement mechanisms of late-orogenic granites: structural and geochemical evidence from southern Finland

Abstract

The country rock in southern Finland formed mainly during the Svecofennian orogeny ca. 1.9 Ga ago. The middle and lower crust was partially melted 1.83 Ga ago due to crustal thickening and subsequent extension. During this event, S-type migmatites and granites were formed along a 100×500 km zone. This Late Svecofennian Granite–Migmatite zone (LSGM zone) is a large crustal segment characterised by roughly E–W trending sub-horizontal migmatites and granites. Combined ductile E–W shear movements and NNW–SSE compressional movements defined a transpressional tectonic regime during the emplacement. Partial melts that moved through the crust pooled as granite sheets or froze as migmatites. Major transpressive shear zones border the LSGM zone, which forms a tectonic and metamorphic zone that crosscuts the earlier Svecofennian granitoids. Based on field observations and geochemical data from two sets of outcrops, we show that the great volumes of late-orogenic granites and migmatites in southern Finland were transported and emplaced as small chemically variable batches, possibly extracted from different protoliths. These melt batches were transported along repeatedly activated channels and collected at some horizontal level in the crust. In the Nagu area, the melt batches were trapped under a roof-layer of amphibolite and the whole complex was synchronously folded into open folds with steep axial surfaces and E–W trending fold axes. The sheets of microcline granite are, in places, strongly sheared; the microcline phenocrysts are imbricated and subsequent deformation of the microcline phenocrysts indicates syn-tectonic movements of the layers as well as a syn-tectonic mechanism for the late-magmatic fractionation. Depending on the degree of crystallisation of the individual melt batches during shearing at different intensities, the granites have slightly different appearances. Some sheared zones show a cumulate-like trace element geochemistry, indicating that melt fractions were expelled from the system, producing layers of deformation enhanced fractionated granites and cumulate layers. Our interpretation is that the Nagu area shows shear-assisted fractionation mechanisms in granitic melts, and that similar processes are responsible for the fractionation trends seen in the sub-horizontal sheeted granites in Hämeenlinna at higher levels in the crust.