P-T evolution of metapelites from the Guarguaraz Complex, Argentina: evidence for Devonian crustal thickening close to the western Gondwana margin

Abstract

In the Guarguaraz Complex of the Argentine Frontal Cordillera (latitude 33.3°S) serpentinite lenses, metabasites, and garnet-bearing metasedimentary rocks occur. The corresponding Devonian metamorphic event was assigned to the formation of an accretionary wedge by previous authors. We have tested this hypothesis by investigating the metamorphic evolution of a pelite from this complex. Garnet in this rock shows a well evolved prograde zoning. Potassic white mica with Si contents between 3.38 (core) and 3.12 (rim) per formula unit, biotite, quartz and plagioclase, which have formed late blasts at the expense of amphibole, coexist with this phase. On the basis of P-T pseudosections and water-absent equilibria, we have estimated the subsequent P-T path for the studied metapelite. The garnet core formed at about 8 kbar and 470-500°C. After nearly isothermal burial to 45 km (13.5 kbar) where Si-rich phengites grew, temperatures increased followed by exhumation and an overprint stage at 8 kbar and 565°C. This P-T path is not compatible with the idea of an accretionary wedge complex. It is more likely that the high-pressure conditions were attained by thickening of continental crust when the hypothetical Chilenia terrane collided with the continental margin of western Gondwana in Devonian times.