Tectonic setting, petrology and geochronology of jadeite + glaucophane and chloritoid + glaucophane schists from north-west Turkey

The north-west Turkish blueschists represent a subducted passive continental margin sequence dominated by metaclastic rocks and marble. The depositional age of the blueschist protoliths are probably Palaeozoic to Mesozoic, while the age of the high-pressure/low-temperature metamorphism is Late Cretaceous. Blueschists are tectonically overlain by a volcanosedimentary sequence made up of accreted oceanic crustal material that locally shows incipient blueschist metamorphism and by spinel peridotite slices. The metaclastic rocks with regional jadeite and glaucophane, which comprise the lower part of the blueschist unit, make up an over 1000-m-thick coherent sequence in the Kocasu region of north-west Turkey. Rare metabasic horizons in the upper parts of the metaclastic sequence with sodic amphibole + Iawsonite but no garnet indicate lawsonite blueschist facies metamorphism. The blueschist metaclastics in the Kocasu region are practically free of calcium and ferric iron and closely approximate the NFMASH system in bulk composition. Two low-variance mineral assemblages (with quartz and phengite) are jadeite + glaucophane + chlorite + paragonite and chloritoid + glaucophane + paragonite. The metaclastics comprise up to several-metres-thick layers of jadeite schist with quartz, phengite and nearly 100 mol% jadeite. Phase relations in the metaclastics show that the chloritoid + glaucophane assemblage, even in Fe2+-rich compositions, is stable in the jadeite stability field. In the NFASH system the above assemblage without the accompanying garnet has a narrow thermal stability field. Mineral equilibria in the metaclastics involving chloritoid, glaucophane, jadeite, paragonite and chlorite indicate metamorphic P-T conditions of 20 ± 2 kbar and 430 ± 30 d C, yielding geothermal gradients close to 5d C km-1, one of the lowest geotherms recorded. Blueschists in the Kocasu region, which have been buried to 70 km depth, are tectonically overlain by the volcanosedimentary sequence and by peridotite buried not deeper than 30 km. Phengites from two jadeite schists were dated by Ar/Ar laser probe; they give an age of 88.5 ± 0.5 Ma, interpreted as the age of metamorphism. Blueschists and the overlying peridotite bodies are intruded by 48-53-Ma-old granodiorite bodies that were emplaced at 10 km depth. This suggests that the exhumation of blueschists by underplating of cold continental crust, and normal faulting at the blueschist-peridotite, interface occurred during the Late Cretaceous to Palaeocene (88-53 Ma).

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