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Curtin Applied Geology Seminar – Dr Julie Vry (Victoria University, New Zealand) on ‘Interpreting evolving P–T conditions in eclogite terranes: insights from a mafic eclogite from the Woodlark Rift, Papua New Guinea’

By Tim Johnson 23 April 2015 Applied Geology Comments Off on Curtin Applied Geology Seminar – Dr Julie Vry (Victoria University, New Zealand) on ‘Interpreting evolving P–T conditions in eclogite terranes: insights from a mafic eclogite from the Woodlark Rift, Papua New Guinea’

Wed 29th April, 12 – 1 pm, Rm 312.222

Abstract

The youngest (ultra-) high pressure ((U)HP) eclogites on Earth are exposed in the gneiss domes of the D’Entrecasteaux Islands of Papua New Guinea. This area is unique in that it remains in the Neogene geodynamic setting – the active Woodlark Rift – that was responsible for rapid exhumation of rocks from mantle depths, and consequent lack of overprinting by unrelated metamorphic events.  Eclogites from this region thus provide a rare opportunity to examine the changing conditions, and our ability to assess changing metamorphic conditions, in subduction-exhumation settings.

The growth of a distinct new mineral assemblage involving coarse rutile, zircon, apatite and quartz in a sample of mafic eclogite from the core zone of the Mailolo Dome, Fergusson Island, provides our starting point.  From there, I will use textures, mineral compositional zoning, and results of Zr-in-rutile geothermometry and garnet-clinopyroxene geothermobarometry to explore some complexities that may arise in interpreting the rapidly-evolving metamorphic P-T conditions in eclogite terranes. 

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