Holistic microstructural techniques reveal synchronous and alternating andalusite and staurolite growth during three tectonic events resulted from shifting partitioning of growth vs deformation

摘要

Excellent inclusion trails in a sample containing both staurolite and andalusite porphyroblasts are used to demonstrate techniques that allow the intimate relationships between deformation and porphyroblast growth to be recognized, described in detail and understood. This approach reveals three main phases of growth of both mineral phases, some of which was demonstrably synchronous, during three tectonic events. Each main period of growth occurred during the early stages of three deformations that were successively near orthogonal. However, extra periods are distinguishable in andalusite in some of these events because this phase occurs as clusters of large crystals that vary in orientation by 2 degrees to >10 degrees. All foliations defined by all inclusion trails within every porphyroblast inflect/intersect about an axis trending at 025 degrees (called a FIA). This indicates that the direction of the horizontal component of bulk shortening was identical for the first and third of the three deformations recorded by porphyroblast growth. Portions of sigmoidal to slightly spiral-shaped inclusion trails in most porphyroblast clusters locally diverge in opposite directions due to overprinting orthogonal bulk shortening typical of that which forms millipede geometries. These microstructures confirm the role of coaxial bulk shortening in initiating porphyroblast growth in an environment that locally becomes strongly non-coaxial as the deformation intensifies in the same event.