Nature 318, 330 - 333 (28 November 1985); doi:10.1038/318330a0

Continental rifts as a setting for regional metamorphism

Stephen M. Wickham^* & E. Ronald Oxburgh

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EQ, UK
^*Present address: Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.

During very high-temperature/low-pressure Hercynian metamorphism in the Pyrenees the crust began to melt at 12 km and stable isotopes show that it was flushed by circulating seawater to that depth. There is no evidence for crustal collision and the tectonic setting for this, and maybe all high-temperature/low-pressure metamorphism, is a zone of continental rifting.

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