Desilication veins in the Cadillac Mountain granite (Maine, USA): a record of reversals in the SiO2 solubility of H2O-rich vapour released during subsolidus cooling

Late-stage hydrous fluids, which evolved during the cooling of the Cadillac Mountain granite, Maine, USA, produced narrow veins that transect the pluton. The vein margins contain microstructures transitional between granite and the vein centre. They preserve the vestige shapes of original Na-rich alkali feldspar crystals that have been pseudomorphed by cordierite+quartz+K-rich alkali feldspar. Closer to the centres of the veins, the minerals change from an outer zone with cordierite, hercynitic–galaxite spinel, minor corundum, K-feldspar and plagioclase to an inner zone with remnant cordierite, hercynitic gahnite, strongly zoned almandine–spessartine garnet, chlorite and quartz. Three allochemical reactions are inferred to have occurred with the influx of hydrous fluids during the replacement process. Reaction (1) is Na-rich alkali feldspar+iron ions in solution=Fe-cordierite+quartz+K-feldspar+sodium ions in solution. Reactions (2) and (3) occurred during desilication. Reaction (2) is Fe-cordierite=hercynite+silica in solution, and reaction (3) is Fe-cordierite+water=corundum+iron hydroxide in solution+silicic acid in solution. Two independent techniques, experimental silica-solubility data and spinel–cordierite thermobarometry, constrain the conditions of vein formation to c.   1.0  kbar and both methods indicate that the progressive mineral reactions occurred during cooling of the hydrous fluids from c. 775° to 400–340  °C. This cooling trend is consistent with the petrographic evidence, which demonstrates that reactions occurred before desilication, during desilication, and then diminished with a final phase of resilication. Although the veins are minor features of the Cadillac Mountain granite, they provide insight into the conditions that prevailed during cooling of the pluton, and similar features may be important for constraining the cooling history of shallow-level plutonic complexes elsewhere.