Compositional controls on coexisting prehnite-actinolite and prehnite-pumpellyite facies assemblages in the Tal y Fan metabasite intrusion, North Wales: implications for Caledonian metamorphic field gradients

Abstract The Tal y Fan Intrusion is a 110 m thick sub-concordant metabasite sheet intruded into volcaniclastic and pyroclastic rocks of Ordovician age in North Wales. Despite low grade metamorphism, primary textural zones resulting from initial cooling of the sheet are preserved and retain primary mineralogical and chemical variations which influenced the nature and extent of metamorphic recrystallization. This has resulted in a vertical sequence of secondary mineral assemblages through the intrusion. During early hydrothermal alteration K-feldspar replaced plagioclase micropheno-crysts in the marginal and contact zones, and olivine in the central zone was replaced by saponite. Subsequent regional metamorphism resulted in the development of (metastable) prehnite-pumpellyite-epidote assemblages in two sub-zones characterized by high Fe₂O₃. Elsewhere the assemblage prehnite-actinolite-epidote developed except in the contact and marginal zones where activity of CO₂ suppressed both prehnite and pumpellyite. Both assemblages contain excess albite, quartz and chlorite and, on the basis of uniform mineral compositions over the area of an individual thin section, are considered to represent buffered equilibrium assemblages indicative of prehnite-pumpellyite and prehnite-actinolite facies conditions. A metamorphic temperature of 310° C at 1.85 kbar is obtained using the P-T-X grid of Liou, Maruyama & Cho (1985), which implies a field gradient of ～ 44° C km^-1. Assuming that metamorphism relates to burial, an overburden thickness of ～ 7 km is indicated. Total maximum thicknesses, however, of Ordovician, Silurian and Lower Devonian strata, in the area, do not exceed 6 km indicating a field gradient of 52° C km^-1. These relatively high gradients may possibly be related to concealed late Caledonian intrusions, or alternatively may result from high heat flow as a consequence of crustal thinning, rapid sedimentation and intense magmatic activity in a marginal basin setting.