A Stable Isotope Study of Anorogenic Magmatism in East Central Asia

A stable isotope study of 168 plutonic igneous rock and fivewater samples from Transbaikalia, East Asia, has been made,including 318 whole-rock and mineral ¹⁸O/¹⁶O analyses and 14D/H analyses. This represents the first detailed isotopic studyof the enormous Phanerozoic K-rich (mostly anorogenic) granitoidbelts of this region, which are thousands of kilometers in lengthand span an age range of >250Ma. Of the five main intrusivesuites, emplacement of the youngest (Permo-Triassic) was accompaniedby intense meteoric-hydrothermal activity, locally causing extreme¹⁸O depletio (¹⁸O _feldspar<–12). This reflects thevery low ¹⁸O of the water involved in these systems, which probablyhad ¹⁸O < – 20 and D < – 150, consistent withthe high paleolatitude of Transbaikalia in the early Mesozoic(80N). Despite local post-emplacement, hydrothermal ¹⁸O-depletioneffects near Permo-Triassic and younger plutons, the variationof magmatic isotopic composition in the five intrusive suites,in space and time, can be clearly discerned using the ¹⁸O/¹⁶Ovariation in phases such as quartz and sphene that are resistantto sub-solidus exchange. A procedure for analyzing ¹⁸O/¹⁶O insphene using a laser fluorination technique is described: analysisof samples as small as 0.4 mg (including single crystals ofsphene from granitoids) is possible and provides an effectiveway to estimate the magmatic ¹⁸O value of plutonic igneous rocks.Most sphene and quartz ¹⁸O values vary by 1.0–2.0% withineach of the five main intrusive suites in Transbaikalia (rangingin age from mid-Paleozoic to Mesozoic), and are uniform bothwithin individual plutons and among plutons of the same suiteseparated by tens or hundreds of kilometers. However, each suitehas a unique range in ¹⁸O/¹⁶O, indicating that, on a regionalscale, the magmatic ¹⁸O values of these granitoids decreasedprogressively in 1% decrements from +10 in the earliest groupto +6 in the youngest. This progression was accompanied by increasesin the concentration of elements such as K and Zr, and decreasesin the concentration of elements such as Sr and Ba. These systematicsrequire large scale deep crustal melting and mixing processesto generate the compositional uniformity of individual plutonsand groups over such wide areas, and also a progressive hybridizationof the crust with alkalic, mantle-derived magmas to generatesyenites and granites with progressively lower ¹⁸O values. Thisprocess may be a hallmark of anorogenic granitoid petrogenesisand the intracontinental cratonization process in general, andalso represents an important (though largely cryptic) crustalgrowth mechanism. KEY WORDS: anorogenic granitoids; crustal growth; hybridization; hydrothermal systems; stable isotopes ¹Present address: Galson Sciences Limited, 5 Grosvenor House, Melton Road, Oakham LE15 6AX, UK.