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Kyanite-eclogite to amphibolite fades evolution of hydrous mafic and pelitic rocks, Adula nappe, Central Alps

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Abstract

In the southern Adula nappe (Central Alps), two stages of regional metamorphism have affected mafic and pelitic rocks. Earlier eclogite facies with a regional zonation from glaucophane eclogites to kyanite-hornblende eclogites was followed by a Tertiary overprint which varied from greenschist to high-grade amphibolite facies. Despite a common metamorphic history, contrasting equilibration conditions are often recorded by high-pressure mafic eclogite and adjacent predominantly lower-pressure pelite assemblages. This pressure contrast may be explained by different overprinting rates of the two bulk compositions during unloading. The rates are controlled by a mechanism in which dehydrating metapelites provide the H2O required for simultaneous overprinting of enclosed mafic eclogites by hydration.

Quantitative mass balance modelling based on corona textures is used to show that overprinting of metapelites during unloading involved dehydration reactions. The relatively rapid rate of dehydration reactions led to nearly complete reequilibration of metapelites to amphibolite facies assemblages.

After the formation during high-pressure metamorphism of mafic eclogites, later lower-pressure reequilibration by hydration to amphibolites was slow, and therefore incomplete, because it depended on large scale transport of H2O from adjacent, dehydrating metapelites.

The facies contrast observed between rocks of different bulk composition is thus a consequence of the general tendency of metamorphic rocks to retain the most dehydrated assemblage as the final recorded state.

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  1. Institut für Kristallographie und Petrographie, ETH Zentrum, CH-8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Christoph A. Heinrich

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Heinrich, C.A. Kyanite-eclogite to amphibolite fades evolution of hydrous mafic and pelitic rocks, Adula nappe, Central Alps. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 81, 30–38 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00371156

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