THE PYROPE-COESITE ROCKS AND THEIR COUNTRY ROCKS AT PARIGI, DORA MAIRA MASSIF, WESTERN ALPS - DETAILED PETROGRAPHY, MINERAL CHEMISTRY AND PT-PATH

Both the coarse- and fine-grained varieties of the partly coesite-bearing pyrope-quartzites, their interlayered jadeite-kyanite rocks, and the biotite-phengite gneiss country rock common to all of them were subjected to detailed petrographic and textural studies in order to determine the sequence of crystallisation of their mineral constituents, which were also studied analytically by microprobe. Prior to pyrope and coesite growth, the Mg-rich metapelites were talc-kyanite-chlorite-rutile-ellenbergerite schists which - upon continued prograde metamorphism - developed first pyrope megacrysts in silica-deficient local environments at the expense of chlorite+talc+kyanite, and subsequently the smaller pyrope crystals with coesite inclusions from reacting talc+kyanite. Based on geobarometrically useful mineral inclusions as well as on experimentally determined phase relations, a prograde PT-path - simplified for water activity = 1 - is constructed which passes through the approximate PT-conditions 16 kbar and 560-degrees-C, 29 kbar and 720-degrees-C, and finally up to 37 kbar at about 800-degrees-C, where the Mg-rich metapelite was a pyrope-coesite rock with phengite, kyanite, and talc still present. During the retrograde path, pyrope was altered metasomatically either into phlogopite+kyanite+quartz or, at a later stage, to chlorite + muscovite+quartz. Both assemblages yield PT-constraints, the latter about 7-9 kbar, 500-600-degrees-C. The country rock gneisses have also endured high-pressures of at least 15 kbar, but they provide mostly constraints on the lowest portion of the uplift conditions within the greenschist facies (about 5 kbar, 450-degrees-C). Microprobe data are presented for the following minerals: pyrope, ellenbergerite, dumortierite (unusually MgTi-rich), jadeite, vermiculite (formed after Na-phlogopite?), paragonite, and for several generations of phengite, chlorite, talc, phlogopite, dravite, and glaucophane in the high-pressure rocks, as well as for biotite, chlorite, phengites, epidote, garnet, albite, and K-feldspar in the country rock gneisses. An outstanding open problem identified in this study is the preservation of minerals as inclusions within kyanite and pyrope beyond their PT-stability limits.