Petrology of the Caribou Mountain Pluton, Klamath Mountains, California

The Caribou Mountain pluton is a small trondhjemitic body thatintruded semipelitic schist of the Stuart Fork terrane in lateMiddle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous time. Its emplacement followedthe intrusion of an adjoining body of hornblende quartz dioritecalled the Middle Fork pluton and the mode of its emplacementwas as an asymmetric ballooning diapir (Davis, 1963), as shownby concentric foliation, radial late-stage dikes, foliated enclaves,and folded blocks of schlieren-banded tonalite. Coarse-grainedhornblende-bearing trondhjemite is the dominant rock type inthe Caribou Mountain pluton, and it is called the ‘maintrondhjemite’. It was followed by medium-grained ‘latetrondhjemite’ and by late-stage trondhjemitic and granodioriticdikes. All the trondhjemitic rock types are characterized bylow alkali contents, high light rare earth elements, low initial⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, and low ¹⁸O. However, the late trondhjemite has higherNa₂O and a higher initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr value than the main trondhjemite,and the two units cannot be related by fractional crystallization.The late granodioritic dikes are richer in Ba, Rb, Y, and Scthan the late trondhjemite and probably reflect assimilationof Stuart Fork metasedimentary rocks by late-stage trondhjemiticmagma. Mafic enclaves in the main trondhjemite contain xenocrysts ofquartz and plagioclase derived from the host by magma mixing.The enclaves have K₂O, Ba, and Rb contents similar to, or higherthan those of the host rocks. Their rare earth element (REE)patterns display strong middle REE enrichment caused by accumulationof hornblende, probably as the result of filter pressing. The main trondhjemite cannot be derived from Middle Fork magmabecause the initial ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr of the Middle Fork pluton is lowerthan that of the trondhjemite. The absence of parental maficmagmas of appropriate composition suggests that the CaribouMountain trondhjemitic magmas formed by partial melting of anamphibolitic source rock compositionally similar to low-K tholeiite.