Rb-Sr and U-Pb isotope studies on migmatites from the Schwarzwald (Germany): constraints on isotopic resetting during Variscan high-temperature metamorphism

Mineral and isotope studies were undertaken on migmatites from the Schwarzwald, Moldanubian zone of the Variscan belt. The aims of the study were to date the migmatite formation and to determine the processes involved in migmatization in order to evaluate their influence on isotopic resetting. Textural evidence and the comparison of mineral compositions from leucosomes and mesosomes of two centimetre-scale migmatite profiles, respectively, suggest that migmatitic textures and mineral assemblages were formed by metamorphic segregation (deformation-enhanced mass transport) rather than by partial melting (anatexis). The results of Rb-Sr thin-slab dating on these profiles indicate that Sr isotopes were not completely reset during migmatization. No true isochron ages, but ages of approximate isotopic homogenization were obtained on the thin slabs by calculating ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios back to various stages in their evolution. The coincidence of these Rb-Sr data with U-Pb ages of monazites from migmatites and non-migmatitic gneisses shows that gneisses and migmatites were formed during the same high-temperature event in the Carboniferous (330-335 Ma). The observation that high-temperature metamorphism failed to equilibrate Sr isotopes on the centimetre-scale imposes limitations on the use of conventional whole-rock isochron techniques in dating migmatites.