Natural staurolite breakdown reactions at moderate to high pressures

Existing staurolite breakdown reactions are briefly discussed and examples of each of the main types suggested from textural evidence from different well studied areas are analyzed. From the staurolite textural data, it is shown that: the pseudomorphic replacement is generally equal area; the replacement is usually by a single mineral or, where a number occur, one volumetrically greatly predominates; and successive reaction coronas exist around a single reactant grain. The analogy between the textural coronas and “monomineralic zones” at the contact of dissimilar rock types is drawn with the subsequent inference that reaction coronas in some, if not most, cases are out of equilibrium with the rest of the assemblage as well as the reactant mineral. In staurolite reaction textures, different grains in a single thin section normally have: different amounts (ratios) of product minerals, different product minerals, some grains which have reacted while others have not and different grains which have reacted to different degrees. Traverses of essentially total chemical analyses across staurolite grains in two test sections showed that considerable intertextural chemical variation in single thin sections exist which is much greater than the chemical variations within textures. Variations of, from 0.59 to 1.86 weight percent ZnO in different homogeneous staurolite grains occur in a single thin section (Z-5670911) and measurable variations of Si, Al, Fe, Mg and Mn are recorded. In all the textures analyzed both Zn and Al was deficient on the product side of balanced reactions, and particularly Zn can be shown to have been lost from the area of the section. The chemical and textural conclusions show that the limits of equilibrium systems, from which metamorphic reactions can be inferred, must be confined to the boundaries of the pseudomorphic texture, which means that ionic (complex bearing ?) species are involved and these systems must be treated as being open.