Garnet Types from the Cazadero Area, California

This is the third in a series of papers on glaucophane schistsfrom the Franciscan Formation near Cazadero, California. Previouspapers describe three distinct types of glaucophane-bearingFranciscan metamorphic rocks near Cazadero. The purpose of this study is to investigate the garnets presentin metamorphic types III (bedrock schists) and IV (tectonicblocks) as defined by Coleman & Lee (1963). Twenty-fourgarnet analyses are presented. Sixteen of these are from (aragonite-bearing)type III glaucophane schists, and eight are from type IV glaucophaneschists. Type IV rocks include California eclogites. Type III rocks include metabasalt, metachert, metashale, meta-ironstone,and metacarbonate that were formed under high pressure and relativelylow temperature. These rocks contain garnets that display awide range of composition, but the dominant molecules representedare consistently almandine, spessartine, and grossular. Type IV rocks are mainly metabasalts that were probably formedunder higher temperatures and pressures than type III rocks.There is a distinct difference between garnets from type IIIrocks and those from type IV (including eclogites); the lattercontainless spessartine and more pyrope, and the dominant moleculesare almandine and grossular. The four analyses of garnets fromCalifornia eclogites have an average pyrope content of aboutten molecular per cent, and they extend the range of compositionreported for eclogite garnets. Quantitative spectrographic determinations of minor elementsare listed for each of the garnets described. The values determinedfor some of the minor elements have a wide range and a capriciousdistribution over a few feet of outcrop area. As a group, both the garnets from type III rocks and those fromtype IV are pyralspites with large contents (as much as 35 molecularper cent) of ugrandite. This unusual admixture of the pyralspiteand ugrandite garnet series may have resulted in part from theconditions (high pressures and relatively low temperatures)under which the enclosing rocks were recrystallized.