HR: 15:50h
AN: V43E-08 [Abstracts]
TI: Sm-Nd Mineral Isochron Age Patterns from Garnet-bearing Peridotite of the Western Gneiss Region, Norwegian Caledonides: Discrete Mantle Events or Continuous Re- equilibration?
AU: * Brueckner, H K
EM: hannes@ldeo.columbia.edu
AF: Queens College and The Graduate Center of The City University of New York, Kessina
Blvd, Flushing, NY 11367, United States
AU: * Brueckner, H K
EM: hannes@ldeo.columbia.edu
AF: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Rt. 9W, Palisades, NY 10964,
United States
AB:
The garnet peridotites (and pyroxenites) of the UHP Western Gneiss Region of Norway give Sm-Nd garnet,
clinopyroxene, whole rock, orthopyroxene, amphibole ages that range from ca. 1.7 Ga to 424 Ma. Most of these
twenty seven ages are much older than the continent-continent collision that transferred these peridoitites from
the mantle into the crust (i.e. the 400 Ma Scandian Orogeny) suggesting the garnet peridotites of the WGR are
unique relative to those in other UHP terranes, which invariably give ages that overlap the time of UHP
metamorphism of the enclosing country rocks. All but the youngest ages given by WGR peridotites reflect
processes that occurred deep in the mantle beneath the Baltic Shield, but it is unclear if they date a series of
discrete events related to the tectonic evolution of the Baltic Shield or if the ages reflect continuous, but variable,
re-equilibration of the Sm-Nd system between phases during the residence of the peridotites in the mantle.
Three ages overlap the 1.75 to 1.55 Ga Gothian Orogeny while twelve ages are within error of the 1.2 to 0.9 Ga
Sveconorwegian Orogeny. The three youngest ages (438 to 424 Ma) are associated with a younger generation of
garnets and may mark the beginning of eclogite-facies metamorphism of Baltica as it was subducted beneath
Laurentia during the Scandian Orogeny. However, the remaining nine ages spread more or less continuously
between these three major events. The overall pattern on a histogram is a range of ages with a pronounced peak
at and near the Sveconorwegian Orogeny. The ages therefore appear to date continuous diffusion between
minerals from garnet-bearing assemblages that formed originally during or, less likely, before the Gothian
Orogeny interrupted by a pronounced thermal event during the Svconorwegian Orogeny and a recrystallization
event during the early stages of the Scandian orogeny. The degree of re-equilibration was probably controlled by
the ambient temperature of the peridotite body in the mantle, which was controlled, in turn, by their depth in the
mantle and their proximity to hot mantle upwelling during the Sveconorwegian Orogeny.
DE: 8102 Continental contractional orogenic belts and inversion tectonics
DE: 8108 Continental tectonics: compressional
DE: 8120 Dynamics of lithosphere and mantle: general (1213)
DE: 8413 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3060, 3613, 8170)
SC: Volcanology, Geochemistry, Petrology [V]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting