Ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism: Tracing continental crust into the mantle

Abstract

More and more evidence is being discovered in Phanerozoic collision belts of the burial of crustal rocks to previously unsuspected (and ever increasing) depths, presently on the order of 150-200 km, and of exhumation from such depths. This extends by almost one order of magnitude the depth classically ascribed to the metamorphic cycling of continental crust, and demonstrates its possible subduction. The pieces of evidence for this new, ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphism exclusively occur in the form of relics of high-pressure minerals that escaped back-transformation during decompression. The main UHP mineral indicators are the high-pressure polymorphs of silica and carbon, coesite and microdiamond, respectively; the latter often demonstrably precipitated from a metamorphic fluid and is completely unrelated to kimberlitic diamond or any shock event. Recent discoveries of pyroxene exsolutions in garnet and of coesite exsolutions in titanite suggest a precursor garnet or titanite containing six-fold coordinated silicon, therefore still higher pressures than implied by diamond stability, on the order of 6 GPa. The UHP rocks raise a formidable geological problem: that of the mechanisms responsible for their burial and, more pressingly, for their exhumation from the relevant depths. The petrological record indicates that large tracts of UHP rocks were buried to conditions of low T/P ratio, consistent with a subduction-zone context. Decompression occurred in most instances under continuous cooling, implying continuous heat loss to the footwall and hangingwall of the rising body. This rise along the subduction channel - an obvious mechanical discontinuity and weak zone - may be driven by buoyancy up to mid-crustal levels as a result of the lesser density of the acidic crustal rocks (even if completely re-equilibrated at depth) after delamination from the lower crust, in a convergent setting. Chronological studies suggest that the rates involved are typical plate velocities (1-2 cm/yr), especially during early stages of exhumation, and bear no relation to normal erosion rates. Important observations are that: (i) as a result of strain partitioning and fluid channelling, significant volumes of subducted crust may remain unreacted (i.e. metastable) even at conditions as high as 700°C and 3 GPa - with implications as to geophysical modeling; (ii) subducted continental crust shows no isotopic or geochemical evidence of interaction with mantle material. An unknown proportion of subducted continental crust must have escaped exhumation and effectively recycled into the mantle, with geochemical implications still to be explored, bearing in mind the above inefficiency of mixing. The repeated occurrence of UHP metamorphism, hence of continental subduction, through time and space since at least the late Proterozoic shows that it must be considered a common process, inherent to continental collision. Evidence of older, Precambrian UHP metamorphism is to be sought in high-pressure granulite-facies terranes. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.