The Saltaga-Tas Early Cretaceous granite massif in the northwest Verkhoyansk-Kolyma orogen: morphology, composition and formation conditions

   This study of the Early Cretaceous Saltaga-Tas granite massif (140–144 Ma) offers insights into the long-debated problem of how magmas are transported and emplaced in the upper crust. The article discusses the structure and composition of granites of the Saltaga-Tas Early Cretaceous massif, localized in the tension fault zone of the Syachan trough of the Uyandina-Yasachnaya island arc magmatic belt. The massif has a complex shape with a combination of chonolith, exposed to the bottom, at 800–1000 m, adjacent sheet body, exposed to full thickness (300–400 m) together with conduits and splitting at its northeastern end into a series of extended (3–5 km) apophyses. The parental melt was generated by partial melting of the lower crustal substrate, representing a mixture of crustal and mantle matter, under the influence of juvenile heat and HCl-enriched fluids. The melt was introduced along a series of steeply dipping faults with further spread along weakened boundary of unconformity between two series of the volcanogenicterrigenous rocks and uplift of the overlying stratum. The massif is dominated by fractionated leucogranites. High melt temperatures (up to 986 °С), amphibole-biotite composition, belonging to the magnetite-ilmenite series, lower crustal genesis makes them similar to I-type granites, whereas the composition of biotites, the ratio of petrogenic oxides and a number of geochemical coefficients correspond to those of S-type granites. Moreover, an increase in silica acidity and total alkalinity of granites from the bottom to the apical horizons of the massif has been established. Correspondingly, on a haplogranite diagram, the evolutionary trend points toward the quartz apex. According to the geological position of the massif, intruding both island-arc and collisional igneous formations of the region, and to most geochemical criteria, the geodynamic setting of granite formation is defined as post-collisional (late orogenic). Finally, confinedness of numerous alkaline-basic dikes to the massif is due to the occurrence of bimodal magmatism here in post-collisional times with simultaneous melting of crustal and mantle substrates.

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