Petrology and geochemistry of an upper crustal pluton: A view into crustal-scale magmatism during arc to retro-arc transition

Abstract

The Late Jurassic English Peak plutonic complex was emplaced in an upper crustal retro-arc setting in the central Klamath Mountains province, northern California. Emplacement of the main, central pluton was preceded by intrusion of two satellite bodies: the Uncles Creek pluton crystallized from H2O-rich quartz dioritic magma with hornblende as the liquidus mafic phase; in contrast, the Heiney Bar pluton is a c. 2·5 km diameter body zoned from gabbro to granodiorite. Al-in-hornblende barometry from these two plutons indicates a stage of magma storage at c. 600-500 MPa. The central English Peak pluton is a c. 15 km diameter body composed of early and late stages. Early stage rocks range from gabbro to tonalite, with variable proportions of augite, orthopyroxene, hornblende and biotite. The early stage lacks discernible zoning and rock types vary at the outcrop scale. This diversity is reflected in bulk-rock compositions, which do not form a compositional array. The late-stage intrusion consists of three concentric units that are zoned from outer, more mafic rocks (quartz diorite, tonalite, quartz monzodiorite) to inner, compositionally evolved rocks (granodiorite and granite). Late-stage samples plot in smooth, typically linear arrays for most major and trace elements. Al-in-hornblende pressures indicate that late-stage hornblende cores grew in a reservoir at c. 400MPa and that rims grew at the level of final emplacement (c. 250 MPa). The mid-crustal reservoir was the site of late-stage magma evolution, including episodic magma mixing. Oxygen and Sr isotopes indicate initial evolution of English Peak pluton magmas in a deep crustal region of mixing, assimilation, storage, and homogenization (MASH zone), where they were contaminated by metasedimentary rocks. Thus, the English Peak pluton represents a crustalscale system, with mantle-derived magmas that differentiated near the Moho, storage and crystallization of satellite-pluton magmas in the middle crust (c. 600-500 MPa), development of a large, episodically recharged, magma chamber in the upper middle crust (c. 400 MPa) and final emplacement in the upper crust.