Origin and evolution of FeAl-granulite in the thermal aureole of the Chilka Lake anorthosite, Eastern Ghats Province, India

The Chilka Lake anorthosite (792±2 Ma) in the northeastern part of the Eastern Ghats Province provides an excellent example of deep-crustal diapiric emplacement and ultra-high temperature (UHT) contact metamorphism. Within a narrow contact zone, supracrustal granulites were heated to temperatures in excess of 1000°C, causing renewed partial anatexis and melt segregation under dynamic conditions, with hybridization of the marginal leuconorite. The thermal history of the innermost aureole is well manifested by reaction textures in a FeAl-granulite occurring at the immediate contact SE of Balugaon. The tightly folded rock shows a finely banded structure. Typically, spinel+ilmenite layers are separated from quartz+garnet₁ ± perthite layers by successive coronitic layers of sillimanite and garnet₂. The sillimanite fabric indicates synkinematic development of the corona. The reaction texture, mineral and bulk chemical characteristics, and geothermobarometric modelling suggest the following thermal evolution: (1) near-isobaric heating of a banded metapelitic granulite (khondalite: grt₁+sil+qtz+kfsp) to c. 1100°C (7-8 kbar). Coeval with partial melting and extraction of the felsic melt, the divariant reaction (FeMg)grt+2sil → 3(FeMg)spl+6qtz is crossed at c. 1050°C, leading to the formation of a restitic FeAl-granulite made up of alternating spl+ilm and qtz+grt₁ layers. The segregated felsic melt causes hybridization of the adjacent leuconorite. (2) Subsequent near-isobaric cooling of the FeAl-granulite (spl+qtz+ilm+grt₁) from c. 1100°C to the stable geotherm. Reversal of the divariant reaction [3(FeMg)spl+6qtz → (FeMg)grt+2sil] produces the multi-layered coronitic texture. During this stage, coronal garnet forms also in the closely associated ferrodiorite via the reaction opx+pl → grt+qtz. The P-T data indicate that the Chilka Lake anorthosite intruded thickened crust at a depth of c. 28 km.