From granulites to eclogites in the Sesia zone (Italian Western Alps): a record of the opening and closure of the Piedmont ocean

The Sesia zone (Italian Western Alps) offers one of the best preserved examples of pre-Alpine basement reactivated, under eclogite facies conditions, during the Alpine orogenesis. A detailed mineralogical study of eclogitized acid and basic granulites, and related amphibolites, is presented. In these rare weak to undeformed rocks microstructural investigations allow three main metamorphic stages to be distinguished.
(a) A medium- to low- P granulite stage giving rise to the development of orthopyroxene + garnet + plagioclase + brown amphibole + ilmenite ± biotite in basic granulites and garnet + K-feldspar + plagioclase + cordierite + sillimanite + biotite + ilmenite in acid granulites.
(b) A post-granulite re-equilibration, associated with the development of shear zones, producing discrete amphibolitization of the basic granulites and widespread development of biotite + sillimanite + cordierite + spinel in the acid rocks.
(c) An eo-Alpine eclogite stage giving rise to the crystallization of high- P and low- T assemblages.
In an effort to quantify this evolution, independent well-calibrated thermobarometers were applied to basic and acid rocks. For the granulite event, P-T estimates are 7–9 kbar and 700–800° C, and for subsequent retrograde evolution, P-T was 4–5 kbar and 600° C. For the eo-Alpine eclogite metamorphism, pressure and temperature conditions were 14–16 kbar and 550° C.
The inferred P-T path is consistent with an uplift of continental crust produced by crustal thinning prior to the subduction of the continental rocks. In the light of the available geochronological constraints we propose to relate the pre-Alpine granulite and post-granulite retrograde evolution to the Permo-Jurassic extensional regime. The complex granulite-eclogite transition is thus regarded as a record of the opening and of the closure of the Piedmont ocean.