scholarly journals Immiscibility and the origin of ladder structures, mafic layering, and schlieren in plutons

Geology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-90
Author(s):  
Allen F. Glazner ◽  
John M. Bartley ◽  
Bryan S. Law

Abstract Granitic plutons worldwide contain ladder structures (LSs) that consist of nested trough-shaped layers alternating between mafic and felsic compositions. LSs and other forms of modal layering have been attributed to crystal accumulation, but their chemical trends differ greatly from those of cumulates and are discordant with chemical variations of their granitic hosts. Mafic layers reach extreme enrichments in transition metals, high-field-strength elements, and incompatible elements, and are extremely depleted in Si and Al. These geochemical characteristics are difficult to explain by crystal accumulation and conflict with sequences of phase appearance during crystallization. They are characteristic of liquid immiscibility, which is an accepted process in the genesis of tholeiitic and alkalic rocks. We propose that ladder structures and other forms of modal layering are markers of immiscibility in calc-alkaline granitic rocks.

1987 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 830-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
David I. Norman ◽  
Kent C. Condie ◽  
Robert W. Smith ◽  
W. F. Thomann

Late Proterozoic volcanic and granitic rocks from the Franklin Mountains in west Texas define a continuous tholeiitic trend from rhyolite (granite) to trachyte with a small compositional gap between trachyte and basalt. Volcanics and granitic rocks have immobile-element geochemical affinities with volcanics from continental-margin-arc systems and associated back-arc basins. Felsic volcanics and granitic rocks appear to have formed by fractional crystallization of basalt during which REE and high-field-strength elements were stabilized as fluoride complexes and concentrated in late or post-magmatic fluids.A Rb–Sr isochron from nonhematized samples (1064 ± 5 Ma, i = 0.7034) falls within the error of reported U–Pb zircon dates and probably dates a period of hydrothermal alteration. εNd values (0.7–2.5 at 1065 Ma) fall below a depleted mantle growth curve and probably reflect contamination of the fractionating magmas with older continental crust. Changes in the isotopic composition of Nd during hydrothermal alteration may also contribute to the spread in εNd values.


Author(s):  
L Scheef ◽  
M Daamen ◽  
U Fehse ◽  
MW Landsberg ◽  
DO Granath ◽  
...  

2003 ◽  
Vol 181 (5) ◽  
pp. 1211-1215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Magee ◽  
Marc Shapiro ◽  
David Williams

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