Infiltration of meteoric fluids in an extensional detachment shear zone (Kettle dome, WA, USA): How quartz dynamic recrystallization relates to fluid-rock interaction

• Meteoric fluids reach ductile shear zones in the footwall of detachment faults.
• The signature of meteoric fluids is preserved in mylonite mica fish.
• Fluid-rock interaction is promoted by deformation-recrystallization processes.
• The Kettle detachment shear zone evolved rapidly from ductile to brittle-ductile (<1 Myr).

We document the interplay between meteoric fluid flow and deformation processes in quartzite-dominated lithologies within a ductile shear zone in the footwall of a Cordilleran extensional fault (Kettle detachment system, Washington, USA). Across 150 m of shear zone section, hydrogen isotope ratios (δD) from synkinematic muscovite fish are constant (δD ∼ −130‰) and consistent with a meteoric fluid source. Quartz-muscovite oxygen isotope thermometry indicates equilibrium fractionation temperatures of ∼365 ± 30 °C in the lower part of the section, where grain-scale quartz deformation was dominated by grain boundary migration recrystallization. In the upper part of the section, muscovite shows increasing intragrain compositional zoning, and quartz microstructures reflect bulging recrystallization, solution-precipitation, and microcracking that developed during progressive cooling and exhumation. The preserved microstructural characteristics and hydrogen isotope fingerprints of meteoric fluids developed over a short time interval as indicated by consistent mica 40Ar/39Ar ages ranging between 51 and 50 Ma over the entire section. Pervasive fluid flow became increasingly channelized during detachment activity, leading to microstructural heterogeneity and large shifts in quartz δ18O values on a meter scale. Ductile deformation ended when brittle motion on the detachment fault rapidly exhumed the mylonitic footwall.