DEHYDRATION VEINS IN DIAGENETIC AND VERY-LOW-GRADE METAMORPHIC ROCKS - FEATURES OF THE CRUSTAL SEISMOGENIC ZONE AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE TO MINERAL FACIES

Declining temperatures during decay of a hydrothermal system, or during uplift and erosion, tend to result in veins involving progressive hydration reactions, e.g. veins with laumontite cutting prehnite-pumpellyite facies rocks, and stilbite veins cutting laumontite veins. In contrast, examples are described of analcime replacement of heulandite along fractures in heulanditized vitric tuff, of replacement of analcime by albite along fractures in quartz-analcime rock, of joint-controlled replacement of heulandite in tuff by laumontite + quartz + (Na, K)-feldspars, of replacement of laumontite by prehnite + quartz along fractures in alumontitized vitric tuff, and of laumontite-bearing feldspathic sandstones cut by vein assemblages of quartz and prehnite +/- calcite. The vein mineral assemblage, sometimes with pumpellyite and/or epidote in the prehnite-bearing veins, tends to spread as a zone of dehydration into the adjacent country rock. Except perhaps for albite replacement of analcime, and for laumontite replacement of heulandite, these open-system reactions involve cation activity ratios in the fluid. All involve dehydration. They are favoured by an increase in temperature, and except under certain situations where P-T equilibrium curves have negative slopes, are favoured by a fall in P(H2O). Evidence indicates that in at least some cases the triggering mechanism was a drop in P(H2O); this may be a widespread phenomenon associated with brittle fracture in the seismogenic upper crust. This may cause fluid pressure to drop from values approaching lithostatic to nearer hydrostatic, and equilibrium may be displaced to yield a less hydrous assemblage that appears as a dehydration vein and vein verge. The dehydration vein assemblage may be diagnostic of a higher grade mineral facies and adds to the mineral complexity attributable to varying permeabilities and fluid pressures in upper crustal strata. Mineral facies are likely to be more uniformly distributed in higher grade rocks from below the brittle-ductile transition zone. Reactions involving complex solid solutions are inappropriate as facies boundaries.