Young and Old Granulites: A Volatile Connection

Granulite facies metamorphism of the lower crust has decreased in scale since the Late Archean, but many of its definitive features have persisted: (1) Punctuated, sometimes relatively short-lived, episodes of high-grade metamorphism. These are recorded, in favorably simple cases, by discrete growth rims on zircons. (2) A consistent age gap of a few to several tens of millions of years between juvenile magmatism (crustal accretion) and high-temperature metamorphism. The secondary thermal pulse is an event distinct from primary crustal accretion. (3) Involvement of mineralizing pore fluids of lowered H2O activity, that is, with high CO2 and saline concentrations. Very high oxidation states of some granulites implicate sulfur as an important fluid component. (4) Transcurrent faulting as a conspicuous feature of synmetamorphic deformation. This gives rise to characteristic transposed foliation and lineation. (5) Emplacement of coeval postorogenic K-rich granites at midcrust levels. These features can be rationalized by concepts of modern plate tectonics. High-angle plate collision is succeeded by orogen-parallel transport. This change of plate motion necessarily detaches the underthrust portion of the lithosphere, liberating asthenospheric melts and/or fluids in a postorogenic resurgence. A generation of volatile-rich mafic magmas invades the continental margin; high CO2 and halogen contents cause outgassing and freezing of the magmas at depth. Liberated volatiles effect granulite facies metamorphism by leaching H2O and lithophile elements, importantly K, and transporting these components and heat upward. Extensive melting of the lower crust is inhibited by the low H2O activity of saline-carbonic pore fluids at high pressure. Melting of orthogneiss and supracrustal rocks occurs at midcrust levels by increase of H2O activity as pressure on alkali chloride solutions falls below 0.6–0.5 GPa. The foregoing hypothesis is an alternative to the classical view that granite results from fluid-absent partial melting of, and extraction from, the lower crust, leaving granulites.