Timing and conditions of high-pressure metamorphism in the western Grenville Province: Constraints from accessory mineral composition and phase equilibrium modeling

Previous geochronological analyses of high pressure (HP) metamorphic rocks in the western Grenville Province, Ontario, Canada have yielded precise U-Pb zircon ages; however, uncertainty has remained as to whether these ages represent the timing of HP metamorphism or the granulite/amphibolite facies overprint accompanying exhumation to a hot middle orogenic crust. Detailed study of these HP rocks, involving garnet, rutile, and zircon trace element analysis, phase equilibrium modeling, and zircon U-Pb geochronology, has yielded much improved constraints on the timing and conditions of HP metamorphism. Zircon from five of the six HP samples yield anchored discordia upper intercept and 207Pb/206Pb weighted average ages between 1097 and 1085 Ma, and typically have trace element compositions consistent with growth in a garnet-rich, plagioclase-poor eclogite-type assemblage (i.e. no negative Eu anomaly and flat HREE trends). Titanium-in-zircon and Zr-in-rutile thermometry indicates that the range of zircon crystallization temperatures for most samples (643-767 °C) is close to that of rutile inclusions in garnet (668-753 °C) and matrix rutile (690-772 °C). Phase relations in a pseudosection calculated for the sample that best preserves the HP assemblage indicate that: (1) the stability field for the inclusions observed in garnet and kyanite is between 11.5 < P < 14 kbar and 600 < T < 700 °C, and (2) zircon and rutile crystallization temperatures intersect the inferred HP assemblage field (Grt + Cpx + Ky + Rt + Hbl + Qtz) and garnet and kyanite modal isopleths at P > ~ 15 kbar, indicating that the ca. 1090 Ma zircon ages date metamorphism at eclogite facies conditions. Thus, the deep burial of mafic lower crust that resulted in HP metamorphism in the western CGB occurred just prior to the main “Ottawan” phase of continental collision in the western Grenville Province (ca. 1080-1040 Ma).