Deep-derived enclaves (belonging to middle-lower crust metamorphic rocks) in the Liuhe-Xiangduo area, eastern Tibet: Evidence from petrogeochemistry

Petrological and geochemical studies of deep-derived enclaves from the Liuhe-Xiangduo area, eastern Tibet, showed that the enclaves involve five types of rocks, i.e., garnet diopsidite, garnet amphibolite, garnet hornblendite, amphibolite and hornblendite, whose main mineral assemblages are Grt + Di + Hbl, Grt + Pl + Hbl + Di, Grt + Hbl + Pl, Pl + Hbl, and Hbl + Bt, respectively. The enclaves exhibit typical crystalloblastic texture, and growth zones are well developed in garnet (Grt) in the enclaves. In view of major element geochemistry, the deep-derived enclaves are characterized by high MgO and FeO*, ranging from 12.00% to 12.30% and 8.15% to 10.94%, respectively. The protolith restoration of metamorphic rocks revealed that the enclaves belong to ortho-metamorphic rocks. The REE abundances vary over a wide range, and Σ REE ranges from 53.39 to 129.04 μg/g. The REE patterns slightly incline toward the HREE side with weak LREE enrichment. The contents of Rb, Sr, and Ba range from 8.34 to 101 μg/ g, 165 to 1485 μg/g, and 105 to 721 μg/g, respectively. The primitive mantle-normalized spider diagrams of trace elements show obvious negative Nb, Ta, Zr and Hf anomalies. Sr-Nd isotopic compositions of the enclaves indicated that the potential source of deep-derived enclaves is similar to the depleted-mantle, and their (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr)_i ratios vary from 0.706314 to 0.707198, (¹⁴⁷Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd)_i ratios from 0.512947 to 0.513046, and ε_Nd (T) values from +7.0 to +9.0, respectively. The potential source of the enclaves is obviously different from the EM2-type mantle from which high-K igneous rocks stemmed (the host rocks), i.e., there is no direct genetic relationship between the enclaves and the host rocks. Deep-derived enclaves in the host rocks belong to mafic xenoliths, and those in the Liuhe-Xiangduo area, eastern Tibet, are some middle-lower crust ortho-metamorphic rocks which were accidentally captured at 20-50 km level by rapidly entrained high-temperature high-K magma, whose source is considered to be located at 50-km depth or so.