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Pliocene eclogite exhumation at plate tectonic rates in eastern Papua New Guinea

Abstract

As lithospheric plates are subducted, rocks are metamorphosed under high-pressure and ultrahigh-pressure conditions to produce eclogites and eclogite facies metamorphic rocks. Because chemical equilibrium is rarely fully achieved, eclogites may preserve in their distinctive mineral assemblages and textures a record of the pressures, temperatures and deformation the rock was subjected to during subduction and subsequent exhumation. Radioactive parent–daughter isotopic variations within minerals reveal the timing of these events. Here we present in situ zircon U/Pb ion microprobe data that dates the timing of eclogite facies metamorphism in eastern Papua New Guinea at 4.3 ± 0.4 Myr ago, making this the youngest documented eclogite exposed at the Earth's surface. Eclogite exhumation from depths of 75 km was extremely rapid and occurred at plate tectonic rates (cm yr-1). The eclogite was exhumed within a portion of the obliquely convergent Australian–Pacific plate boundary zone, in an extending region located west of the Woodlark basin sea floor spreading centre. Such rapid exhumation (> 1 cm yr-1) of high-pressure and, we infer, ultrahigh-pressure rocks is facilitated by extension within transient plate boundary zones associated with rapid oblique plate convergence.

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Figure 1: Eastern PNG tectonic and geologic maps4,6,21.
Figure 2: Pressure–temperature conditions for D'Entrecasteaux eclogites.
Figure 3: U/Pb, trace and REE results.

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Acknowledgements

S.L.B. and P.G.F. gratefully acknowledge support from the US National Science Foundation's Geoscience Directorate, Division of Earth Sciences, Tectonics and Instrumentation and Facilities Programs. M.G. acknowledges support from the Department of Energy. Fieldwork would not have been successful without the efforts of D. Pinasi, and the support from City Resources. A. Schmitt contributed significantly in helping us to obtain ion microprobe REE analyses from zircon and garnet. The ion microprobe facility at UCLA is partly supported by a grant from the Instrumentation and Facilities Program, Division of Earth Sciences, US National Science Foundation.

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Correspondence to Suzanne L. Baldwin.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Containing: Supplementary Table S1: Electron microprobe results for sample 870921; Supplementary Table S2: U-Th/Pb analytical results for zircons in sample 870921; Supplementary Table S3: Trace and rare earth element results for sample 870921; Supplementary Table S4: Trace and Rare Earth Element Partition Coefficients for sample 870921; Supplementary Figure S5: Backscattered electron image of retrogressed eclogite sample 870921, D’Entrecasteaux Islands, PNG and P–T plot of thermobarometric results. (DOC 347 kb)

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Baldwin, S., Monteleone, B., Webb, L. et al. Pliocene eclogite exhumation at plate tectonic rates in eastern Papua New Guinea. Nature 431, 263–267 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02846

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