Zircon petrochronology and mineral equilibria of the eclogites from western Tasmania: Interrogating the early Palaeozoic East Gondwana subduction record

Abstract

Evidence for high-pressure metamorphism along the Cambro-Ordovician East Gondwana margin is limited to occurrences of eclogite-facies rocks in the central Transantarctic Mountains, northern Victoria Land, western Tasmania, and eastern Australia. The western Tasmanian eclogites in the Franklin Metamorphic Complex are enclosed by high-grade metapelitic lithologies and contain a high-pressure mineral assemblage of garnet + omphacitic clinopyroxene + pargasitic amphibole + phengite + quartz + rutile + clinozoisite. Mineral relationships and compositions in the eclogites, combined with mineral equilibria forward modelling, indicate the eastern margin of Tasmania was subducted along a relatively cold thermal gradient to pressures between 18 and 21.5 kbar at temperatures of 650–700 °C. LA–ICP–MS U-Pb analysis of zircon yields middle Cambrian ages, consistent with previous geochronology, as well as older Mesoproterozoic ages. Rare earth element concentrations in Cambrian-aged zircon suggest they formed at high pressures whereas Mesoproterozoic-aged zircon formed at lower pressures. Garnet preserves elemental concentrations consistent with prograde growth, with middle and heavy rare earth element concentrations resolving a complex growth history involving the consumption of clinozoisite and apatite. In-situ rutile LA–ICP–MS U-Pb ages are early to middle Cambrian and indicative of prograde to peak growth during subduction, with Zr concentrations in matrix rutile yielding upper-amphibolite-facies temperatures. In this contribution, the pressure-temperature (P–T) results for the western Tasmanian eclogites revise existing conventional thermobarometric P–T data. The updated thermal gradient information can be more precisely allied with subduction zone thermal models, which provide predictions of the thermal structure of the subduction geodynamic system. Furthermore, when integrated with the mineral equilibria and P–T data from other eclogites along the margin, these results expand upon the existing interpretations of the geodynamic character of the Cambro-Ordovician East Gondwana margin.