Chloritoid, and the Isochemical Character of Barrow's Zones

It is argued that despite poverty of outcrop the apparent restrictionof chloritoid to a wedge-shaped area at the north-eastern extremityof Barrow's zones is real. Two possible interpretations of thisrestriction are considered: (a) That the chloritoid producingreaction (as yet unidentified) was characterized by a lowerP/T than that of the reaction muscovite+ chlorite+chloritoid+quartz staurolite+biotite+H²O, whereby, with increasing grade, chloritoidgives way to staurolite. A pressure gradient increasing fromnorth-east to south-west (postulated on separate grounds, Chinner,1966) would then result in the convergence of the chloritoidand staurolite isograds towards the south-west, and the eventualsuppression of the chloritoid isograd to give the wedge-shapedoutcrop actually found, (b) The lack of low-grade hydrous assemblagesaluminous enough to give chloritoid or staurolite with increasinggrade suggests that the low-grade limit of chloritoid (and,to the south-west, of staurolite) may not be an isograd, buta chemical boundary. Such a boundary could either be metasedimentary,or metasomatic, representing an alkali gradient of the typestudied by Orville, in which, essentially, potassium and waterreleased within the high-grade metamorphic zones have migratedto low-grade zones to form more micaceous assemblages. The widespreadexistence of ‘shimmer aggregate‘ muscovite alterationof aluminous minerals in thesillimanite, kyanite, and staurolitezones provides evidence of potassium transfer during the waneof metamorphic temperatures on a scale comparable to that which,during the main metamorphic imprint, would have been requiredto mask the development of peraluminous assemblages in the chlorite,biotite, and garnet zones.