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Metamorphic evolution of aluminous granulites from Labwor Hills, Uganda

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Abstract

Sapphirine-cordierite-quartz and spinel-cordierite-quartz form relic assemblages of probable Archaean age in Fe-rich aluminous metapelites from Labwor Hills, Uganda, and reflect an unusually high temperature metamorphism (∼1,000° C) at pressures in the vicinity of 7–9 kbars and a(O2) near the magnetite-hematite buffer. Subsequent reaction textures include the replacement of spinel and cordierite by sillimanite and hypersthene and formation of sapphirine-hypersthene-K-feldspar-quartz symplectites which are interpreted as pseudomorphs after osumilite. A petrogenetic grid appropriate to these assemblages suggests these reaction textures may be due to cooling at constant or increasing pressure and constant a(O2), or decreasing a(O2) at constant temperature and pressure. The former interpretation is supported by the coexistence of ilmenohematite and magnetite during the development of the reaction textures, and by the comparatively low Al2O3-contents of secondary hypersthene. This pressure-temperature path implies that: (1) metamorphism occurred at deep levels within normal thickness crust, probably less than 40–45 km thick, due to an extreme thermal perturbation induced either by emplacement of mantle-derived magmas or by thinning of the subcontinental lithosphere in an extensional tectonic regime, (2) the excavation and surface exposure of the granulites is due to a subsequent, postgranulite facies metamorphism, crustal thickening most probably involving their incorporation into an allochthonous upper crustal thrust sheet during the formation of the Mozambique foldbelt.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of Melbourne, 3052, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Michael Sandiford & Roger Powell

  2. Department of Physical Sciences, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

    Fiona B. Neall

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  1. Michael Sandiford
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  2. Fiona B. Neall
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  3. Roger Powell
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Sandiford, M., Neall, F.B. & Powell, R. Metamorphic evolution of aluminous granulites from Labwor Hills, Uganda. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 95, 217–225 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00381271

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00381271

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