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Tracing ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism at the catchment scale
Jan Schönig1, Guido Meinhold2,3, Hilmar von Eynatten2
1Department of Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, Geoscience Centre Göttingen, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstraße 3, 37077, Göttingen, Germany. jan.schoenig@uni-goettingen.de.
Scientific Reports
|February 15, 2018
Summary
Researchers discovered intact coesite inclusions within garnet grains from modern sand. This breakthrough enables tracing ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphic rocks and their erosional products across entire catchments, advancing our understanding of deep subduction.
Area of Science:
- Geology
- Mineralogy
- Tectonics
Background:
- Ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphism provides insights into Earth's geodynamic evolution and deep subduction processes.
- Traditionally, UHP rocks are identified by coesite inclusions or quartz pseudomorphs in thin sections, limiting analysis to small sample sizes and specific outcrops.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a novel method for identifying UHP metamorphic rocks by detecting coesite inclusions in detrital minerals.
- To demonstrate the application of this method for tracing UHP rocks at a catchment scale.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of mineral grains from a modern sand sample collected in the Western Gneiss Region, SW Norway.
- Identification of intact monomineralic coesite inclusions within garnet grains using advanced petrographic techniques.
Main Results:
- The first intact monomineralic coesite inclusions were discovered in garnets from the Western Gneiss Region.
- These findings suggest the erosion of UHP rocks within the sampled catchment area.
Conclusions:
- The detection of coesite in detrital garnets offers a new approach to trace UHP metamorphic rocks and their erosional products.
- This method expands the scale of UHP exploration from outcrops to entire catchments, opening new avenues for geological research.
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