Strongly deformed potassium feldspar-rich dikes are widely distributed in the northern part of the Sulu ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) metamorphic terrane, eastern China. The fact that the crystallization ages of these dikes overlap with the age of peak UHP metamorphic conditions implies the presence of melt during metamorphism. Sr isotopic ratios of the dikes are compatible with their origin as partial melts of the dominant felsic Sulu gneiss. Partial melting may be the key to solving several unusual features of the Sulu and other UHP terranes, such as the almost complete lack of mineralogical evidence for UHP conditions and the limited growth of zircon during UHP conditions in the dominant felsic gneiss. In addition, because partial melting will cause a drastic reduction in the strength of the UHP gneisses, the most likely exhumation mechanism is diapiric rise of a lowviscosity, partially molten mass containing entrained blocks of eclogite, and not a thin sheet as usually proposed.

Kyanite bearing eclogitic assemblages occur in the highest grade zone of the Sanbagawa metamorphic belt, central Shikoku, Japan. The eclogites consist mainly of garnet, omphacite, phengite, kyanite, epidote, quartz and rutile. Compositionally variable amphibole (glaucophane/barroisite/pargasite), phengite and paragonite occur as inclusions in garnet and other eclogite facies phases. Careful examination of garnet zoning in kyanite eclogites suggests that (i) most garnet grains show complex zoning consisting of relatively Ca rich/Mg poor inner and Ca poor/Mg rich outer segments, (ii) the inner segment of the zoned garnet formed at the eclogite facies stage, and (iii) the Mg rich outermost rim of garnet does not always represents a composition at peak eclogite stage but could form at lower pressure conditions of subsequent epidote amphibolite facies. The assemblage of inner segment of garnet, omphacite, phengite, kyanite and quartz points to equilibrium conditions of 2.3 2.4 GPa/675 740 °C. The metamorphic P T conditions of the eclogite facies stage reported in literature have been estimated assuming that the outermost rim of garnet with Mg rich composition was in equilibrium with other eclogite facies phases. Therefore, P T estimations of the eclogite facies stage in the Sanbagawa metamorphic belt should be re examined carefully on the basis of textural and compositional heterogeneities of constituent minerals.

No abstract

No abstract