Mineral-scale Sr-isotope constraints on magma evolution and chamber dynamics in the Rum layered intrusion, Scotland.

Abstract

Sr isotopic zoning within single plagioclase crystals from rocks from Unit 9 of the Rum layered intrusion is used to infer events during crystal growth in a magma undergoing contamination. The 87Sr/86Sr diversity among minerals and between cores and rims of plagioclase crystals increases as the boundary between unit 9 and the overlying Unit 10 peridotite is approached. Models of near-solidus interaction of the cumulate with a fluid or melt, or large scale textural re-equilibration, cannot easily account for the systematic differences in 87Sr/86Sr between small crystals and the rims of larger crystals. We propose a simple interpretation in which crystal growth is concentrated along the cool margins of the reservoir. Crystals are subsequently advected to a site of accumulation at the base of the reservoir, probably by episodic plume-like dense downwellings allowing mixing of isotopically zoned and unzoned crystals. If the core-rim isotope variations are inherited from primary magmatic growth, then the small distances over which they are now preserved (1�2 mm) place constraints on the minimum cooling rate of the intrusion. Although the length scale of diffusive equilibration is influenced by a number of poorly-constrained variables (starting temperature, feldspar composition, temperature-time path) cooling was clearly very rapid with cooling to effective closure (1,000 C) within a few thousand years.