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Selective elemental depletion during metamorphism of archaean granulites, scourie, NW Scotland

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Abstract

The low abundances of large ion lithophile elements (LIL), K, Rb, U, Th, Cs, and high K/Rb ratio in rocks varying in composition from gabbro to granite in the Scourian complex, NW Scotland, are interpreted as due to depletion during granulite facies metamorphism. Depletion was controlled by the mineralogy of the rock, the composition of the associated fluid phase and its volume relative to the volume of the rock. K-feldspar granites and granodiorites were not depleted in K and only moderately in Rb, but tonalites and trondhjemites were strongly depleted in both K and Rb. Published mineral-fluid partition coefficients for LIL in aqueous systems indicate that between 0.075 and 2.0 rock volumes of fluid phase passed through the host rock in order to achieve the observed selective elemental depletion.

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  1. Hugh R. Rollinson

    Present address: Department of Earth Sciences, The University, LS2 9JT, Leeds, England

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, The University, LE1 7RH, Leicester, England

    Hugh R. Rollinson & Brian F. Windley

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  1. Hugh R. Rollinson
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  2. Brian F. Windley
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Rollinson, H.R., Windley, B.F. Selective elemental depletion during metamorphism of archaean granulites, scourie, NW Scotland. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 72, 257–263 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00376144

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