Repeated hydrothermal quartz crystallization and cataclasis in the Bavarian Pfahl shear zone (Germany)

• We analyzed meso-to microstructures of hydrothermal quartz by optical microscopy and hot-cathode cathodoluminescence microscopy.
• The complexity of these structures is a result of repeated processes such as fragmentation, fluid influx and silicification.
• Fragmentation was partly accompanied by flow of suspensions of cataclastically deformed quartz (fluidized cataclasite).

Field and microstructural data of the Pfahl shear zone in north-eastern Bavaria (Germany) reveal the intimate spatial-temporal connection between fragmentation, fluid influx and quartz crystallization. These processes and their interaction led to complex-structured quartz units: (i) a dense network of early quartz veins, (ii) two domains of fine-grained reddish to grayish quartz masses, (iii) an extended central zone of massive white quartz, and (iv) late cross-cutting closely spaced parallel fractures and partly open quartz veins.The fine-grained quartz domains result from repeated and coeval cataclasis, fluidization and quartz precipitation. Material transport in these domains is at least partly governed by the flow of mobile fluid-quartz-particle suspensions. The complex internal meso-to microstructures of the massive white quartz are generated by repeated processes of fragmentation and grain growth. In general, the brittle part of the Pfahl shear zone represents a key example of cyclic dissolution/precipitation and fragmentation on large scale.