Late Variscan (315 Ma) subduction or deceptive zircon REE patterns and U–Pb dates from migmatite‐hosted eclogites? (Montagne Noire, France)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Eclogites hosted in sillimanite‐bearing migmatites in the Montagne Noire dome (French Massif Central) have an oceanic protolith and recorded a prograde P–T path from ~19.5 kbar, 700°C to the pressure peak at ~21 kbar, 750°C (pseudosection modelling), suggesting metamorphism in a subduction setting. Subsequent exhumation to low‐ P high‐ T (LP–HT) conditions (~6 kbar, 730°C) is constrained by the equilibration conditions of the embedding migmatite. In samples of a fresh and a retrogressed eclogite, all zircon crystals but one display similar REE patterns (no Eu anomaly, flat HREE), usually ascribed to crystallization under eclogite‐facies conditions. Yet, the U–Pb apparent ages of zircon crystals from both eclogites spread from c. 360 Ma to a dominant data cluster at c. 315 Ma. The c. 315–310 Ma zircon U–Pb dates obtained from the embedding migmatite are interpreted as the age of crystallization of the partial melt during the LP–HT metamorphic stage. First‐order geological evidence, in particular the sedimentary record, excludes the existence of a subduction zone in the region at this period. Unless calling upon a major reappraisal of the tectonics of the European Variscan orogen, this suggests an ambiguous relation between REE patterns and U–Pb dates in the zircon population. Various scenarios that could account for the observations are discussed. Combining our data with the results of a previously published Sm–Nd dating of garnet, and regional considerations, we consider that 360 Ma is the best approximation of the minimum age of the eclogite‐facies event. We hypothesize that the eclogites formed farther north and were transferred to their present location by lower‐crustal flow. It is inferred that during the subsequent exhumation, eclogite‐facies zircon grains recrystallized and underwent partial to total resetting of their U–Pb system, whereas the REE system remained mostly unmodified. These results caution against the use of REE patterns as the only criterion to associate a specific zircon age with HP metamorphism in eclogites occurring in migmatitic domes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.031 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".