Symplectitic cordierite-orthopyroxene-garnet assemblages as products of contact metamorphism of pre-existing basement granulites in the Vredefort Structure, South Africa, and their relations to pseudotachylite

Abstract

Former idioblastic garnet crystals of an Archaean granulite with Mg/(Mg+Fe+Mn)-ratios (= M) near 0.40 were converted to symplectitic pseudomorphs consisting mainly of cordierite (M=0.61), orthopyroxene (M=0.40), and a relic garnet with a new composition (M=0.18), during a static metamorphism which is related in time to the Vredefort event. On the basis of experimental data for the continuous reaction garnet+quartz=orthopyroxene+cordierite the conditions of metamorphism were near 5 kb, 700 °C. Orthopyroxenes crystallized initially as minute, myrmekitic grains with metastable excess Al contents up to 13 mol% Al₂O₃ and, through grain growth and Al exsolution, transformed into dense aggregates of coarser crystals with equilibrated compositions near 3 mol% Al₂O₃. In the absence of free silica hercynitic spinel appears as an additional phase that coexists with cordierite, orthopyroxene, and garnet of more magnesian compositions than in the case of silica saturation.

Pseudotachylite veins crosscutting the hornfelsed granulite consist of pyroxene of variable Al contents, two feldspars, opaques, and quartz, and are finely recrystallized. There is textural and mineral chemical evidence from both the Al-contents of the pyroxenes and the Mg/Fe distribution among the phases adjacent to the pseudotachylite that these veins were emplaced late during the static metamorphism, which was probably caused by a local, deep-seated magma diapir. On this basis, the meteorite impact hypothesis for the origin of the Vredefort Structure is considered less likely than a mechanism of internal origin which can be made responsible for the close link in time and space between static metamorphism and the high strain rate deformation that produced the pseudotachylite.