Petrogenesis of the Eocene Highly Fractionated Granite Porphyry with REE Tetrad Effect: An Example from Western Yunnan, Southeastern Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Highly fractionated granites are widely distributed in the crust and provide unique windows into magmatic evolution. This study reports petrography, zircon U–Pb ages, trace elemental, and Hf isotopic, as well as whole-rock elemental and Nd isotopic data of highly fractionated granite porphyries from the Shiguanshan area in western Yunnan, southeastern Tibet. The granite porphyries were formed at 34.0 ± 0.3 Ma in a post-collisional setting. They are strongly peraluminous (A/CNK = 1.95–2.80), have high SiO2 content (SiO2 = 78.16–79.13 wt.%) and zircon saturation temperatures (803–829 °C, average 819 °C), and low MgO, with pronounced enrichment in Pb, U, Th, and Rb, and depletion in Ti, Eu, P, Sr, and Ba, and belong to highly fractionated A-type granites. These rocks define linear trends on Harker diagrams and display similar enriched whole-rock Nd isotopic (εNd(t) = −12.8 to −12.3) and zircon Hf isotopic (εHf(t) = −10.4 to −8.8) compositions compared to the published data of coeval mantle-derived syenite porphyries, which can be attributed to fractional crystallization processes. A quantitative model suggests that the Shiguanshan granite porphyries likely formed through the fractionation process of a mineral assemblage consisting of plagioclase, K-feldspar, biotite, and amphibole (in a ratio of 40:30:25:5), with fractionation degrees of 50%–55%. The magmatic textures and zircons, decoupling between the REE tetrad effect and fractionation of twin-elements, along with the modeling result of Rayleigh fractionation, suggest that the REE tetrad effect in the Shiguanshan granite porphyries may be caused by fractionation of accessory minerals. Our data, along with regional observations, propose that the generation of these granite porphyries is possibly related to lithospheric removal following the Indo–Asia collision.