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Sm-Nd isotopic study of garnets and their metamorphic host rocks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

O. van Breemen  and
C. J. Hawkesworth
O. van Breemen
Affiliation:
Isotope Geology Unit, Scottish Universities Research and Reactor Centre, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75 0QU, Scotland.
C. J. Hawkesworth
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, England.
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Abstract

In this feasibility study, Sm/Nd and 143Nd/144Nd ratios have been determined on garnets and coexisting mineral and whole-rock phases from a selection of amphibolite facies rocks, granulite facies rocks and an eclogite. In two micaceous schists and an eclogite the distribution coefficient of the Sm/Nd ratio in garnet relative to other phases is in the range 2-3, i.e. comparable to values for phenocrysts in igneous rocks. In two granulite facies rocks the garnets have Sm/Nd distribution coefficients relative to other phases in the range 13-20 and have yielded precise ages.

Garnet from a granulite facies shear zone from the Limpopo belt in southern Africa, of Archaean age, has yielded concordant duplicate ages of 1974±14 Ma and 1988±14 Ma. These results have been interpreted as relating to the last tectonic event in the region, long after the main gneiss-forming event. Garnet from a granulite facies xenolith from a Carboniferous vent in the Midland Valley of Scotland has yielded an age of 356±10 Ma; this is related to the onset of basic magmatism in the region.

Keywords

distribution coefficienteclogitexenolithschistgranulite faciesamphibolite facies
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , 1980 , pp. 97 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1980

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