SHRIMP zircon U–Pb ages and REE partition for high-grade metamorphic rocks in the North Dabie complex: Insight into crustal evolution with respect to Triassic UHP metamorphism in east-central China

We present SHRIMP U–Pb ages and REE data for zircon of two granulites, a garnet pyroxenite and a clinopyroxene amphibolite from the North Dabie complex. The North Dabie complex is a major fault-bounded petrotectonic unit in the Dabie continental collisional orogen between the South and North China Blocks. Zircon REE data are applied to link ages to specific petrological processes. In addition to SHRIMP zircon U–Pb dating, measurements were made on monazites from a HP–UHT metapsammitic granulite. Metamorphic zircon grains and coeval overgrowths on detrital cores from one granulite yielded a weighted mean 207Pb/206Pb age of 2042 ± 7 Ma, corresponding to peak HP/UHT metamorphism. The zircon cores have well-preserved oscillatory, magmatic growth zoning and generated a range of 207Pb/206Pb ages from 2766 ± 8 Ma to 3089 ± 3 Ma, representing the detrital source. Concordant analyses of monazites from the same granulite sample yielded a weighted mean 207Pb/206Pb age of 2001 ± 6 Ma, which we interpret as the time of exhumation to the middle crustal level. A magnetite–orthopyroxene–garnet quartzite associated with a banded iron formation has a metamorphic zircon age of 2293 ± 7 Ma (granulite-facies) with a detrital core age of 2435 ± 28 Ma. These results are interpreted to indicate a composite affinity to the South China and North China Blocks for the ancient Archean–Paleoproterozoic crust in the North Dabie metamorphic rocks. The garnet pyroxenite, known as a typical HP–UHP granulite, contains a multiple, latest Permian to Triassic metamorphic zircon population with 206Pb/238U ages of ca. 254–253, ca. 242–226, ca. 210, and ca. 203 Ma. Along with published zircon and titanite U–Pb age data and mineralogical evidence, we suggest that the HP–UHP granulite evolved broadly synchronously with UHP eclogites during continental collision in the latest Permian to Triassic. In the garnet pyroxenite, there is also zircon inheritance of variable ages (ca. 291–2477 Ma), indicative of a probable sedimentary origin of the protolith; there also occur young, mid-Jurassic to Cretaceous zircons ranging in age between 165 and 112 Ma, signifying considerable crustal reworking in mid-Jurassic and Cretaceous times. Zircons from the clinopyroxene amphibolite have a weighted mean 206Pb/238U age of 780 ± 6 Ma representing the minimum time of protolith emplacement, and 133 ± 2 Ma for an anatectic event in the post-collisional stage. The age data of this amphibolite are similar to those of granitic gneisses/migmatites in the North Dabie complex. The new U–Pb zircon ages for the North Dabie rocks provide constraints on the affinity of collided crustal blocks, the metamorphic history of HP–UHP granulites, and post-collisional crustal reworking.

► Mélange nature of a continental collisional complex in east-central China.
► We provide zircon age constraints on the affinity of collided crustal blocks.
► We document metamorphic synchroneity between the HP–UHP granulites and eclogites.
► Zircon REE patterns provide a linkage between age and specific geological processes.