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Evolution of spinel-bearing ultrahigh-temperature granulite in the Jining complex, North China Craton: constrained by phase equilibria and Monte Carlo methods

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Abstract

The peak temperature and timescale of ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) metamorphism are significant for understanding its thermal budget and geodynamic evolution. The spinel-bearing (sapphirine-absent) UHT granulite at the Xuwujia area in the Jining complex, North China Craton was revealed to have undergone a metamorphic evolution that involves the pre-Tmax (maximum temperature) heating decompression to the Tmax stage with an extreme temperature of ~1125 °C, the post-Tmax cooling to the fluid-absent solidus (~860 °C) at 0.8–0.9 GPa, and sub-solidus decompression. The Tmax condition was recorded by the inferred feldspar-absent peak assemblage of spinel ± garnet. The post-Tmax cooling evolution was indicated by the sequential appearances of plagioclase, K-feldspar, sillimanite and biotite, as well as the core-to-rim ascending grossular component in garnet. Moreover, some texturally zoned spinel has exsolved lamellae of magnetite in the core and shows rim-ward increase of Mg and Al, which suggests a temperature decrease from >1100 °C in local domains isolated from quartz. Spinel with exsolved magnetite lamellae or low Al/(Al + Fe3+) is therefore proposed as an indicator for UHT conditions in metapelites. Probability simulation on the collected zircon ages yields a timescale of ~40 Myr (95% confidence; during 1.90–1.94 Ga) for the supra-solidus cooling stage of the UHT metamorphism in the Jining complex. This extreme UHT metamorphism has reached the rock’s dry solidus (~1125 °C) and undergone slow cooling, which is interpreted to result from a post-orogenic plume activity with sufficient advective heating from hyperthermal mafic intrusions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Xiaoli Li for his assistance with experimentation. We appreciate the constructive comments and suggestions from reviews Alexander Proyer and Martin Racek and the thorough editorial work of editors Shah Wali Faryad and Lutz Nasdala. The present study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 42030304 and 4189083013).

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  1. MOE Key Laboratory of Orogenic Belts and Crustal Evolution, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Bin Wang, Chun-Jing Wei & Wei Tian

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Wang, B., Wei, CJ. & Tian, W. Evolution of spinel-bearing ultrahigh-temperature granulite in the Jining complex, North China Craton: constrained by phase equilibria and Monte Carlo methods. Miner Petrol 115, 283–297 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00710-021-00743-1

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