Geochemical evolution of peraluminous plutons in southern Nova Scotia, Canada—a pegmatite-poor suite

Three southern Nova Scotia plutons crystallized rapidly at 375 Ma from magma containing both mantle and crustal components. Isotopic and chemical data suggest that the crustal contribution included both lower crustal material and Cambro-Ordovician turbidites of the host Meguma Group. Despite local evidence of mixing and mingling of magmas, the bulk of the plutons evolved by assimilation and fractional crystallisation. Evolved portions of the plutons have compositions appropriate for development of rare-metal pegmatite fields, but pegmatites are relatively rare and little differentiated. Like parental plutons, pegmatites fall into biotite+plagioclase and muscovite+potassium feldspar assemblages. The latter locally contain Mn-rich garnet+biotite, giving calculated P–T conditions of pegmatite crystallisation of 620°C, 0.44 GPa under water-saturated conditions. Host rocks at the time of emplacement experienced P–T conditions varying from <500° to 620°C at 0.44 GPa. Beryl-bearing pegmatites occur only where host rocks were below sillimanite-grade, and pegmatites of any kind are scarce in sillimanite-grade host rocks. Rarity of pegmatites can be ascribed to a combination of insufficient amounts of F, Li, and B in the magma with rapid cooling which prevented extensive fractionation and undercooling. Our data suggest rather that peraluminous suites, produced by rapid heating due to incursions of lithospheric mantle into supracrustal rocks, and typified by biotite-rich, cordierite-bearing plutons, are not favorable locales for major rare-metal-enriched pegmatite fields. Such fields appear to require relatively prolonged anatexis resulting from crustal thickening, or an areally extensive mafic underplate,