Jonathan M. Pownall

Earth’s youngest known ultrahigh-temperature granulites discovered on Seram, eastern Indonesia

Episodes of ultrahigh-temperature (UHT, ≥900 °C) granulite metamorphism have been recorded in mountain belts since the Neoarchean. However, evidence for the tectonic mechanisms responsible for the generation of such extreme thermal conditions is rarely preserved. Here we report the discovery of 16 Ma UHT granulites—the youngest identified at the Earth’s surface—from the Kobipoto Mountains of Seram in eastern Indonesia. UHT conditions were produced by a modern tectonic system in which slab rollback–driven lithospheric extension caused core complex–style exhumation of hot subcontinental lithospheric mantle. Overlying continental crust, heated and metamorphosed by exhumed lherzolites, developed spinel + quartz and sapphirine-bearing residual assemblages, shown by phase equilibria modeling to have required temperatures of ∼950 °C at ∼8 kbar pressure. Seram is therefore a possible modern analogue for ancient orogens that incorporate UHT granulites.

Shallow laccolithic emplacement of the Land's End and Tregonning granites, Cornwall, UK: Evidence from aureole field relations and P-T modeling of cordierite-anthophyllite hornfels

The Land’s End and Tregonning-Godolphin granites of the >250 km-long Permian Cornubian Batholith are heterogeneous medium- to coarse-grained peraluminous biotite-, tourmaline-, and lithium-mica granites traditionally thought to be emplaced as massive magmatic diapirs. Although S-type characteristics are dominant (quartz + biotite + muscovite + tourmaline ± topaz ± lithium-micas in the melt, numerous greisen and pegmatite veins, Sn-W mineralization), some characteristics of evolved I-type granites are also exhibited (hornblende-bearing enclaves, elevated ɛNd, Cu mineralization, batholithic dimensions). Here, we present an investigation focusing on the contact metamorphism and deformation of the aureole rocks adjacent to the Land’s End and Tregonning granites as an approach to better determine the method of granite emplacement and the depth at which it occurred. New 1:5000-scale geological maps are presented for ∼15 km of coastal exposure of the granites and their aureoles. We propose that the granites were emplaced non-diapirically by intrusion of sills that amalgamated to form a sheeted laccolith-type body. Granite contacts cleanly truncate all faults, folds, and cleavages generated during both Variscan convergence and subsequent latest Carboniferous–Early Permian (end-Variscan) extension, and it is likely that granite was emplaced during continuation of this extensional episode. There is evidence for stoping of the country rocks by an outward-migrated sill and dyke network, and uplift and doming of the host rocks can be partially attributed to laccolith inflation. Host meta-siltstones of the Devonian Mylor Slate Formation formed a contact aureole of cordierite + biotite + chlorite ± andalusite “spotted slates.” Several interspersed pillow basalts and dolerites, previously affected by hydrothermal alteration, underwent isochemical contact metamorphism to form cordierite- and orthoamphibole-bearing hornfels, including cordierite-anthophyllite rocks that are present in Kenidjack cliff, NW Land’s End aureole. THERMOCALC P-T modeling and pseudosection construction for these rocks in the large Na2O-CaO-K2O-FeO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O-TiO2-Fe2O3 (NCKFMASHTO) chemical system indicates contact metamorphism occurred at 1.5 ± 1.0 kbar and 615 ± 50 °C. This ultra-low pressure metamorphism equates to a likely emplacement depth of 5–6 km for the adjacent granite sheets. The Cornubian Batholith is highly composite and likely comprises an amalgamation of discrete shallow-seated sheeted laccoliths that are dyke-fed from a common lower-crustal/upper-mantle melt region to result in the batholith’s mixed S-type/I-type character.

Rolling open Earth’s deepest forearc basin

The Weber Deep—a 7.2-km-deep forearc basin within the tightly curved Banda arc of eastern Indonesia—is the deepest point of the Earth’s oceans not within a trench. Several models have been proposed to explain the tectonic evolution of the Banda arc in the context of the ongoing (ca. 23 Ma–present) Australia–Southeast Asia collision, but no model explicitly accounts for how the Weber Deep achieved its anomalous depth. Here we propose that the Weber Deep formed by forearc extension driven by eastward subduction rollback. Substantial lithospheric extension in the upper plate was accommodated by a major, previously unidentified, low-angle normal fault system we name the “Banda detachment.” High-resolution bathymetry data reveal that the Banda detachment is exposed underwater over much of its 120 km down-dip and 450 km lateral extent, having produced the largest bathymetric expression of any fault discernable in the world’s oceans. The Banda arc is a modern analogue for highly extended terranes preserved in the many regions that may similarly have “rolled open” behind migrating subduction zones.

Reconstructing subducted oceanic lithosphere by “reverse-engineering” slab geometries: The northern Philippine Sea Plate

Subducting slabs commonly acquire complex geometries from the migration of subduction trenches, slab-mantle interaction, slab tearing, and collision of slabs at depth. Although it is possible to construct three-dimensional models of subducted slabs using earthquake hypocenter locations and tomographic models, it is often not possible to rigorously test their accuracy. Here we present a methodology for performing such a test, by “reverse-engineering” the presubduction configuration of a slab of oceanic lithosphere from interpretations of its present-day morphology. We illustrate our approach for the Ryukyu and Shikoku slabs, northwest Philippine Sea, having simulated them as viscoelastic sheets that we unfolded and “floated” to the surface. The net strain distribution of the floated mesh indicated which parts of the original slab model were geometrically viable (minimal net strain) and which parts of the mesh required additional tears and/or zones of localized ductile extension to have enabled the slab to deform during subduction. In the instance of the Ryukyu and Shikoku slabs, the Palau-Kyushu and Gagua ridges are shown to have both acted as planes of weakness that broke into major vertical slab tears. These subducted ridges are connected by a trench-parallel tear that represented the former contact between the Huatung and West Philippine Basins. The fossil spreading center of the Shikoku Basin formed a separate slab window upon subduction along the Nankai Trough. The methodology presented herein is a powerful tool to evaluate complex slab morphologies, infer the locations of slab tears, and therefore reconstruct intricate configurations of subducted oceanic lithosphere.