Injection of enriched lithospheric mantle magmas explains the formation of microgranular enclaves in the Rio Jacaré Batholith, Borborema Province, Brazil

Abstract

The Rio Jacaré Batholith (RJB; 617 ± 4 Ma) is inserted in the Poço Redondo Domain, Sergipano Orogenic System. This batholith is formed by monzodiorite, quartz monzodiorite, monzonite, and quartz monzonite, with abundant microgranular enclaves (MEs). The MEs vary from black to light gray and exhibit globular to slightly elongated shapes with clear-cut, crenulated, and cuspate, or, more rarely, diffuse contacts. They correspond to diorites, monzodiorites, quartz monzodiorites, and monzonites, and textural features indicate mixing of magmas, such as compositional zoning in plagioclase, inclusion zones in plagioclase phenocrysts, poikilitic alkali feldspar, acicular apatite, and ocellar quartz. Calculations of linear correlations of major elements showed that the smallest fraction of mafic magma involved in the mixing was 0.43. MEs represent the breakdown and cooling of a mafic magma that was injected into a cooler felsic magmatic chamber. Emplacement of this mafic magma occurred at different stages of crystallization of the RJB magmatic chamber. The MEs are magnesian and metaluminous, with affinity to the shoshonitic series. Ratios for Ba/Nb (> 23), Ba/La (> 15), and Nb/La (0.22-0.69) are characteristic of magmas generated from partial melting of an enriched lithospheric mantle source. Batch melting modeling suggests that source melting rates of less than 3% are necessary to generate magmas similar to those of the RJB MEs.