B-Type Olivine Fabrics Within the Cumulate Buck Creek Ultramafic Body Emplaced During Southern Appalachian Taconic Subduction

Abstract

The Buck Creek ultramafic complex is a fragment of oceanic cumulate emplaced into the lower Laurentian continental crust during Ordovician Taconic subduction. We document olivine fabrics in the relatively pristine dunites preserved from peak metamorphic conditions of ∼850°C and 1.0–1.4 GPa confining pressure. Mineral assemblages and microstructures indicate nearly anhydrous conditions at peak metamorphism and the activity of dislocation creep with minor evidence of grain boundary sliding. Grain size piezometry indicates stress conditions of ∼17–25 MPa. Analysis of crystallographic preferred orientations (CPO) and intracrystalline misorientations indicate the primary activity of the [001](010) slip system leading to the development of B-type olivine fabrics. We suggest that the Buck Creek dunites formed as ocean crust cumulates and were partially subducted beneath the Laurentian continental crust to deformation conditions similar to those in the shallow mantle wedge. We document that deformation at Buck Creek occurred at lower differential stress conditions and lower water content than typically associated with B-type CPOs, broadening the range of known conditions in which these fabrics may form.