Testing models for the development of spiral-shaped inclusion trails in garnet porphyroblasts: to rotate or not to rotate, that is the question

Abstract The formation of spiral-shaped inclusion trails (SSITs) is problematical, and the two viable models for their formation involve opposite shear senses along the foliation in which the porphyroblasts are growing. One model argues for porphyroblast rotation, with respect to a geographically fixed reference frame, whereas the other argues for no such porphyroblast rotation, but instead rotation of the matrix foliation around the porphyroblast. Thus, porphyroblasts with SSITs cannot be used as shear-sense indicators until it is conclusively determined which model best explains them.
Any successful model must explain features associated with SSITs, including: (1) foliation truncation zones, (2) smoothly curving SSITs, (3) millipede microstructure, (4) total inclusion-trail curvature in median sections, (5) porphyroblasts with SSITs that have grown together, (6) evidence for relative porphyroblast displacements, (7) shear-sense indicators inside and outside porphyroblasts; (8) crenulations associated with porphyroblasts and (9) geometries in sections subparallel to spiral axes (axes of rotation). A detailed study of these features suggests that most, if not all, can be explained by both the rotational and non-rotational models, in spite of these models involving diametrically opposed movement senses. Therefore, geometrical analysis of individual porphyroblast microstructures may not determine which model best explains SSITs until the kinematics required to form these microstructures are better understood, in particular the sense of shear along a developing crenulation cleavage. Specific tests for determining the shear sense along crenulation cleavages are proposed, and results of such tests may conclusively resolve the debate over how SSITs form.