Talk Description
The paired metamorphic belts, i.e., coeval high P – low T rocks (eclogites) and low P – (ultra) high T rocks (granulite), are the hallmark of modern-day horizontal plate tectonics. At around 3000 Ma, a faster convention mantle formed the earliest continental crust. The gradual cooling of the mantle would ultimately stabilize thick continental plates with deeper mantle convection. Numerical modes also suggest that Mesoarchean to early Paleoproterozoic (3200 Ma – 2500 Ma) represent a transition period of an early stagnant tectonic model to subduction-driven plate tectonics. Granulite facies represent extreme temperature conditions of lower crustal rocks during crustal assembly and disintegration processes. In the last decade, articles were published from high Mg-Al granulites of twin Karimnagar – Bhopalpatnam Granulite Belts flaking the Eastern Dharwar Craton (EDC) and the Bastar Craton (BC), respectively, to model the Neoarchean crustal amalgamation processes. However, due to limited exposure and prone to retrogression, garnet migmatites, and felsic granulites receive less attention. The garnet-bearing migmatite and charnockites occur as isolated outcrops in the central part of the Karimnagar Granulite Belt. Orthopyroxene and garnet are the major minerals in the studied samples. Zircon occurs as an accessory mineral. The mineral association implies that garnet stabilized by consuming orthopyroxene, biotite, and plagioclase in a prograde reaction path. Phase-diagram modeling implies peak P-T conditions, i.e., 900 - 950°C, 0.7 - 0.8 GPa for garnet stabilization. The 207Pb/206Pb ages of zircon imply the presence of Archean zircon (~ 2700 Ma) mantled by younger zircons that yield an average age of 2200 – 2100 Ma. The older zircons preserve magmatic textures and yield an upper intercept age of 2700 Ma when plotting on a U-Pb Concordia diagram. The 2700 Ma-aged garnets from Karimnagar Granulite Belt, combined with the ~ 2800 Ma high-P metamorphic events of Bundelkhand Craton (BuC), point towards the existence of a Paleosubduction zone, where the Archean crust of the Bundelkhand Craton was getting subducted below the EDC - BC. We suggest that a probableArchean subduction has produced the high – P rocks of the BuC, whereas slab-breakoff and upwelled mantle provided the necessary heat for 2700 Ma aged high -T granulite facies metamorphism in the EDC just before the Mesoarchean – Paleoproterozioc transition.