The metamorphic belt in the Dongjiu area is located in the eastern segment of the Lhasa terrane in South Tibet. The Dongjiu metamorphic rocks are primarily composed of schist and gneiss, with minor amounts of marble, and the protoliths are sedimentary rocks with Precambrian and early Palaeozoic zircons probably deposited during the Palaeozoic or late Neoproterozoic. On the basis of petrology and phase equilibria modelling, this study shows that the Dongjiu metamorphic belt has experienced a kyanite-grade metamorphism, which is characterized by a decompressional vector with slight cooling from a peak of 9.6 kbar and 745°C to medium-pressure amphibolite-facies metamorphic overprinting at 5–6 kbar and 600–630°C. This P–T path was well recorded and recovered by garnet zoning profiles. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry in situ U–Pb analyses on metamorphic zircons and zircon rims yielded concordant 206Pb/238U ages of c. 194–192 Ma, suggesting that the Dongjiu metamorphic rocks were formed during the Early Jurassic. Therefore, the Dongjiu metamorphic belt, together with the western Nyainqentanglha, Basongco, and Zhala metamorphic belts, constitutes a nearly continuous tectonic unit with an E–W extension of at least 500 km between the northern and southern Lhasa terranes. The metamorphic ages of these belts, ranging from 230 to 192 Ma, show a younger trend from west to east, indicating that the central segment of the Lhasa terrane experienced an eastward asynchronous collisional orogeny during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic.
The Nyingtri Group of the Lhasa terrane in southern Tibet consists dominantly of metasedimentary rocks and orthogneiss. These rocks have a similar mineral paragenesis of plagioclase + K-feldspar + biotite + quartz ± sillimanite ± garnet ± staurolite ± muscovite ± amphibole, indicating amphibolite-facies metamorphic conditions. Inherited detrital zircons from the metasedimentary rocks show magmatic features and yield widely variable 206Pb/238U ages ranging from 3300 to 50 Ma. The data define two prominent age populations, 1200–1000 and 600–500 Ma, indicating that the source of the Nyingtri Group preserves the records of both Grenville and Pan-African magmatic-thermal events. Inherited magmatic zircon cores from the orthogneiss yield a crystallization age of 496 Ma, limiting the depositional age of the metasedimentary sequence to Cambrian or older. Overgrowth rims on the detrital zircons from one metasedimentary rock yield a metamorphic age of 32 Ma. On the basis of these results, together with the regional comparison, we infer that the Nyingtri Group was formed during or before the Cambrian, with a potential provenance from the Pinjarra Orogen of Western Australia–East Antarctica. This rock group, together with the Tethyan Himalayan Sedimentary Sequence, represents an early Paleozoic sedimentary cover of the northern margin of the Gondwana supercontinent that was intruded by Cambrian granites during the circum-Gondwana Andean-type orogeny. Along with published data, this study demonstrates that the Nyingtri Group was metamorphosed during Mesozoic and Cenozoic, as against the previous notion of a Precambrian metamorphic basement for the Lhasa terrane.
ABSTRACT Magmatic arcs are natural laboratories for studying the growth of continental crusts. The Gangdese arc, southern Tibet, is an archetypal continental magmatic arc that formed due to Mesozoic subduction of the Neo-Tethyan oceanic lithosphere; however, its formation and evolution remain controversial. In this contribution, we combine newly reported and previously published geochemical and geochronological data for Mesozoic magmatic rocks in the eastern Gangdese arc to reveal its magmatic and metamorphic histories and review its growth, thickening, and fractionation and mineralization processes. Our results show that: (1) the Gangdese arc consists of multiple Mesozoic arc-type magmatic rocks and records voluminous juvenile crustal growth. (2) The Mesozoic magmatic rocks experienced Late Cretaceous granulite-facies metamorphism and partial melting, thus producing hydrous and metallogenic element-rich migmatites that form a major component of the lower arc crust and are a potential source for the Miocene ore-hosting porphyries. (3) The Gangdese arc witnessed crustal thickening and reworking during the Middle to Late Jurassic and Late Cretaceous. (4) Crystallization-fractionation of mantle-derived magmas and partial melting of thickened juvenile lower crust induced intracrustal chemical differentiation during subduction. We suggest that the Gangdese arc underwent the following main tectonic, magmatic, and metamorphic evolution processes: normal subduction and associated mantle-derived magmatism during the Late Triassic to Jurassic; shallow subduction during the Early Cretaceous and an associated magmatic lull; and mid-oceanic ridge subduction, high-temperature metamorphism and an associated magmatic flare-up during the early Late Cretaceous, and flat subduction, high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphism, partial melting, and associated crust-derived magmatism during the late Late Cretaceous. Key issues for further research include the temporal and spatial distributions of Mesozoic magmatic rocks, the evolution of the components and compositions of arc crust over time, and the metallogenic processes that occur in such environments during subduction.
变质相平衡模拟是变质岩领域近几十年最重要的进展之一,它已经成为确定变质作用P-T-t轨迹和探索变质演化过程的有力工具。变质岩的矿物组合不但与其形成的温度(T)和压力(P)条件有关,而且受控于岩石的全岩成分(X)。但是变质岩通常是不均匀的并且往往保留两期以上的矿物组合,因此计算不同成分域或不同变质演化期次的有效全岩成分是模拟P-T视剖面图的核心问题之一。在中-低温变质岩中,石榴石变斑晶的生长会不断地将其核部成分冻结而不参与后续变质反应,这导致根据实测全岩成分计算的P-T视剖面图无法有效地模拟石榴石幔部或边部生长阶段的变质演化过程。瑞利分馏法和球体积法利用电子探针实测的石榴石成分环带可以模拟计算石榴石各个生长阶段所对应的有效全岩成分,本文推荐使用这两个方法来处理石榴石变斑晶的分馏效应问题。相比较而言,石榴石在高温变质岩中通常无法保留生长阶段的成分环带特征,这是因为石榴石成分在高温条件下会发生扩散再平衡,并同时与多数基质矿物达到热力学平衡,这时一般不需要考虑石榴石的分馏效应。但是高温变质岩通常会发生部分熔融并伴随熔体的迁移,进而改变岩石的有效全岩成分。因此,通过P-T视剖面图模拟熔体迁移前后的变质演化过程需要使用相平衡法计算迁移的熔体成分以及熔体迁移前后岩石的有效全岩成分。此外,后成合晶与反应边是变质岩中最常见的退变质反应结构,但是后成合晶或反应边中的矿物之间并未达到热力学平衡。这种情况需要结合岩相学观察和矿物成分,利用最小二乘法确定后成合晶或反应边中发生的平衡反应方程式,进而获取变质反应发生时的有效全岩成分并通过计算P-T视剖面图来估算退变质的温压条件。除此之外,岩石体系中三价铁(Fe2O3)和H2O含量的估算一直以来都是相平衡模拟研究中的难点,本文推荐使用P/T-X(Fe3+/Fetot,MH2O)视剖面图来确定这两个组分的含量,这是因为P/T-X图可以估算各个变质演化阶段或特定矿物组合的Fe2O3或H2O含量。;Phase equilibria modeling is one of the most important advances in metamorphic petrology in recent decades,which has become a useful tool for determining the P-T-t paths and understanding the metamorphic evolution. The metamorphic mineral assemblages are not only determined by pressure (P) and temperature (T), but also controlled by the bulk-rock compositions (X). However, the metamorphic rocks are commonly heterogeneous and preserve two or more mineral assemblages. Thus, to perform P-T pseudosections, it is critical to calculate the effective bulk compositions of different compositional domains and/or mineral assemblages. In low-medium temperature metamorphic rocks,the growth of garnet porphyroblasts will continuously isolate the garnet core from the matrix. Thus, the P-T pseudosection calculated using the analyzed bulk-rock composition may not represent the metamorphic evolution related to the growth of garnet mantle or rim. Using the measured garnet zoning profiles, both Rayleigh fractionation and ball volume methods can be applied to calculate the effective bulk composition corresponding to each stage of garnet growth. Therefore, it is recommended to treat the garnet fractionation through these two methods. By contrast, garnet does not commonly show growth compositional zoning profile in high-temperature metamorphic rocks, because the garnet composition will suffer volume diffusion and re-equilibrated at high temperature conditions. This will lead to the thermodynamic equilibrium between garnet and matrix minerals. In this case, it is unnecessary to consider the garnet fractionation. However, high-temperature metamorphic rocks usually undergo partial melting and melt migration, which in turn changes the bulk-rock compositions. Therefore, to model the metamorphic evolutions before and/or after melt migration through the P-T pseudosection requires the phase equilibria method to calculate the migrated melt compositions and the effective bulk compositions before and/or after the melt migration. The symplectites and corona are the most common retrograde microstructures in metamorphic rocks, but the thermodynamic equilibrium has not been reached between the minerals in symplectites and corona. In this case, we suggest determining the equilibrium reaction equation that occurs in the symplectites and corona through the least square method combined with the petrographic observation and mineral compositions. Thus, the bulk composition of the reactants or products represents the effective bulk composition when the equilibrium reaction occurs. In addition,the estimation of ferric iron (Fe2O3) and H2O content in bulk-rock composition is always critical to the phase equilibria modeling. It is suggested to apply the P/T-X (Fe3+/Fetot, MH2O) pseudosections to determine the content of these two components. Because the P/T-X pseudosections are robust to estimate the Fe2O3 or H2O content for any metamorphic evolution stage or mineral assemblage.