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Metamorphic zonations on presumably subducted lithospheric plates from Japan, California and the Alps

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Abstract

High-pressure blueschist-type mineral parageneses from the Sanbagawa belt of southwestern Japan, the Franciscan terrane of western California and the Sesia zone, Pennine and Helvetic realms of the central Alps may reflect metamorphic conditions attending lithospheric plate descent. The observed progressive metamorphic sequences seemingly have developed chiefly, but not exclusively within the confines of oceanic crust, and evidently mark the suture zones between pairs of convergent lithospheric plates. The downgoing slabs have developed relatively near-surface (1) zeolitized rocks and apparently at successively greater depths (2) pumpellyite-bearing rocks, (3) greenschists and/or blueschists, and (4) albite-amphibolites; eclogitic assemblages are characteristic of the highergrade environments. The sense of metamorphic progression (1)→(2)→(3)→(4) marks the direction of presumed lithospheric underflow.

Profound pressure discontinuities revealed by mineral assemblage contrasts across the plate junctions indicate that the high-pressure terranes must have risen great distances subsequent to the blueschist-type recrystallization. This conclusion is supported in California and the Alps by the exposure of rocks interpreted as basal portions of the oceanic or continental crust+upper mantle in the overlying lithospheric slabs; such sections appear to have been dragged upwards adjacent to the plate junctions during the buoyant rise of the underlying and subducted blueschistic slabs subsequent to active plate convergence. The exposed widths of the high-pressure metamorphic belts roughly correlate with the depths of inferred crustal subduction now exhumed of 25–35 km or more.

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  1. Department of Geology and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, 90024, Los Angeles, California

    W. G. Ernst

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The manuscript was critically reviewed and much improved by P. Bearth, D. Bernoulli, H. P. Laubscher, V. Trommsdorff and E. Wenk, University of Basel; E. Niggli, Bern University; R. G. Coleman, U. S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park; aad A. Miyashiro, State University of New York, Albany.

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Ernst, W.G. Metamorphic zonations on presumably subducted lithospheric plates from Japan, California and the Alps. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 34, 43–59 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00376030

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