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Polychronous (Early Cretaceous to Palaeogene) emplacement of the Mundwara alkaline complex, Rajasthan, India: 40Ar/39Ar geochronology, petrochemistry and geodynamics

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Abstract

The Mundwara alkaline plutonic complex (Rajasthan, north-western India) is considered a part of the Late Cretaceous–Palaeogene Deccan Traps flood basalt province, based on geochronological data (mainly 40Ar/39Ar, on whole rocks, biotite and hornblende). We have studied the petrology and mineral chemistry of some Mundwara mafic rocks containing mica and amphibole. Geothermobarometry indicates emplacement of the complex at middle to upper crustal levels. We have obtained new 40Ar/39Ar ages of 80–84 Ma on biotite separates from mafic rocks and 102–110 Ma on whole-rock nepheline syenites. There is no evidence for excess 40Ar. The combined results show that some of the constituent intrusions of the Mundwara complex are of Deccan age, but others are older and unrelated to the Deccan Traps. The Mundwara alkaline complex is thus polychronous and similar to many alkaline complexes around the world that show recurrent magmatism, sometimes over hundreds of millions of years. The primary biotite and amphibole in Mundwara mafic rocks indicate hydrous parental magmas, derived from hydrated mantle peridotite at relatively low temperatures, thus ruling out a mantle plume. This hydration and metasomatism of the Rajasthan lithospheric mantle may have occurred during Jurassic subduction under Gondwanaland, or Precambrian subduction events. Low-degree decompression melting of this old, enriched lithospheric mantle, due to periodic diffuse lithospheric extension, gradually built the Mundwara complex from the Early Cretaceous to Palaeogene time.

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Acknowledgments

Field work was supported by Grant 09YIA001 to Sheth from the Industrial Research and Consultancy Centre (IRCC), IIT Bombay. We thank Reshma Shinde and Laiq S. Mombasawala for valuable help with the ICPAES analyses at SAIF, IIT Bombay. Funds for EPMA analyses by Cucciniello were provided by Italian MIUR (PRIN Grants 2010–2011 to Leone Melluso). Pande acknowledges Grant No. IR/S4/ESF-04/2003 from the Department of Science and Technology (Govt. of India) towards the development of the IIT Bombay—DST National Facility for 40Ar/39Ar Geo-thermochronology. Pande also thanks the IRCC, IIT Bombay, for maintenance support to the Facility (grant 15IRCCCF04). Vijayan was supported by a Ph.D. Scholarship from the University Grants Commission (UGC), Govt. of India. Jagadeesan thanks Dr. A. Dash, Head, IP and AD, BARC and Dr. S. V. Thakare, IP and AD, BARC, for encouragement and support. Fred Jourdan’s detailed review of an earlier version of this paper is greatly appreciated. The present manuscript considerably benefitted from careful journal reviews by Morgan Ganerød and Nilanjan Chatterjee, and the editorial handling of Axel Gerdes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Kanchan Pande, Hetu Sheth, Anjali Vijayan & Sapna Shinde

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell’Ambiente e delle Risorse (DiSTAR), Università di Napoli Federico II, via Mezzocannone 8, 80134, Naples, Italy

    Ciro Cucciniello

  3. Department of Geology, Government Postgraduate College, Sirohi, Rajasthan, 307001, India

    Kamal Kant Sharma & Ritesh Purohit

  4. Isotope Production and Application Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, 400085, India

    K. C. Jagadeesan

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  1. Kanchan Pande
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Pande, K., Cucciniello, C., Sheth, H. et al. Polychronous (Early Cretaceous to Palaeogene) emplacement of the Mundwara alkaline complex, Rajasthan, India: 40Ar/39Ar geochronology, petrochemistry and geodynamics. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 106, 1487–1504 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-016-1362-8

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