Carbon isotope exchange during polymetamorphism in the Panamint Mountains, California, USA

Carbon isotope fractionations between calcite and graphite in the Panamint Mountains, California, USA, demonstrate the importance of mass balance on carbon isotope values in metamorphosed carbon-bearing minerals while recording the thermal conditions during peak regional metamorphism. Interbedded graphitic marbles and graphitic calcareous schists in the Kingston Peak Formation define distinct populations on a δ¹³C_(gr)–δ¹³C_(cc) diagram. The δ¹³C values of both graphite and calcite in the marbles are higher than the values of the respective minerals in the schists. δ¹³C values in both rock types were controlled by the relative proportions of the carbon-bearing minerals: calcite, the dominant carbon reservoir in the marble, largely controlled the δ¹³C values in this lithology, whereas the δ¹³C values in the schists were largely controlled by the dominant graphite. This is in contrast to graphite-poor calcsilicate systems where carbon isotope shifts in carbonate minerals are controlled by decarbonation reactions. The marbles record a peak temperature of 531±30 °C of a Jurassic low-pressure regional metamorphic event above the tremolite isograd. In the schists there is a much wider range of recorded temperatures. However, there is a mode of temperatures at c. 435 °C, which approximately corresponds to the temperatures of the principal decarbonation metamorphic reactions in the schists, suggesting that the carbon exchange was set by loss of calcite and armouring of graphite by newly formed silicate minerals. The armouring may explain the relatively large spread of apparent temperatures. Although the modal temperature also corresponds to the approximate temperature of the Cretaceous retrograde event, retrograde exchange is thought less likely due to very slow exchange rates involving well-crystallized graphite, armouring of graphite by silicates during the earlier event, and because of other barriers to retrograde carbon exchange. Thus, only the calcite–graphite carbon isotope fractionations recorded by the marbles demonstrate the high-temperature conditions of the low-pressure Jurassic metamorphic event that was associated with the emplacement of granitic plutons to the west of the Panamint Mountains.