Granite suites and supersuites of eastern Australia

Abstract

Separate granite plutons in southeastern Australia can commonly be grouped into suites on the basis of shared similarities in field, petrographic and compositional data. Granites in different plutons of the same suite share common properties or exhibit a sequence of such features. Rocks of the same suite are cogenetic, but the details of their genesis need not be known or agreed on, to group granite units in such a way. These rocks are cogenetic in the sense that they shared a similar petrogenesis and were derived from source materials of essentially the same composition, whereas differences between suites reflect analogous differences in their source rocks. The term suite is lithologic or lithodemic in a stratigraphic sense and is closely analogous to the lithostratigraphic term group. As such, the plutons within a suite need not be of the same age, and age is not a factor in recognising a suite. However, the fact that the petrogenesis of the components of a suite resulted in such similar products means that their ages are likely to be similar. Granite plutons that share many similar features, but which also show distinct differences and which may be assigned to more than one suite, may be grouped into supersuites. The allocation of granites to suites is fundamental to understanding their petrogenesis. Suites vary in the complexity of their compositional variation. Simple suites show variations in element abundances that are highly correlated and the dispersion of composition within such suites is considered to result from varying degrees of fractionation of entrained restite from a melt. Intricate suites vary in composition in more complex ways and their variation is considered to be a consequence of processes such as fractional crystallisation. Any mineralisation is generally associated with intricate suites, and the occurrence of mineralisation and its precise character is generally specific to particular suites.

Source-inherited compositional diversity in granite batholiths: The geochemical message of Late Paleozoic intrusive magmatism in central Calabria (southern Italy)

“…The BMG, although mostly calc-alkaline and strongly peraluminous like the BMPG, shows mixed features that do not allow them to be categorized unambiguously into one of the two above main suites. It is to be specified that the term suite is here used in the broad sense of a group of igneous rocks with common structural, mineralogical and geochemical features and not in the more restricted sense of simple suite, where all the major and trace elements need to be on trends in variation diagrams (e.g., White et al, 2001).…”

Comment on “Accordion vs. quantum tectonics: Insights into continental growth processes from the Paleozoic of eastern Gondwana” by Jonathan C. Aitchison, Solomon Buckman Gondwana Research, Volume 22, Issue 2, September 2012, Pages 674–680

“…Figures Fig. 1 Wyborn et al, 1986;White et al, 2001) and the extent of outcrop of the Macquarie arc. Map is restricted to southeastern New South Wales and northeastern Victoria (ACT = Australian Capital Territory).…”

Petrography and major elements geochemistry of microgranular enclaves and neoproterozoic granitoids of south Khasi, Meghalaya: Evidence of magma mixing and alkali diffusion

“…Dodge and Kistler, 1990). It has been further argued that the linear elemental variation has resulted due to heterogeneous distribution of mafic minerals and greater abundance of enclaves in more mafic member of suites (White et al 2001), which favour the restitic origin for most enclave types hosted in granitoids (White et al 1999). If so, then enclaves must not show magmatic textures anyway (Clemens, 2003), who further emphasized that there is still no whisper from the enclaves regarding the dominant source material.…”