Growth and zoning of the Hortavaer intrusive complex, a layered alkaline pluton in the Norwegian Caledonides

• Published in: Geosphere (Boulder, Colo.) Colo.), 2009-06, Vol.5 (3), p.286-301
• Main Authors: Barnes, Calvin G, Prestvik, Tore, Li, Yujia, McCulloch, Lindy, Yoshinobu, Aaron S, Frost, Carol D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: assimilation; Caledonides; central Norway; emplacement; Europe; Hortavaer Complex; host rocks; igneous and metamorphic rocks; igneous rocks; intrusions; layered intrusions; magmas; magmatism; metamorphic rocks; Norway; Petrology; plutonic rocks; plutons; Scandinavia; Western Europe
• ISSN: 1553-040X; 1553-040X
• DOI: 10.1130/GES00210.1

The Hortavaer intrusive complex, Norway, is a layered igneous complex that was assembled by multiple injections of magmas that ranged from gabbroic through granitic in composition. Layering is defined by intrusive sheets that range from 10 cm to 2 m in thickness. Geopetal structures associated with these sheets indicate that the complex underwent 90°-120° of postsolidification tilting, and subsequent exhumation and erosion have exposed an oblique, 6-km-thick section through the complex. The complex is heterogeneous: at the outcrop scale a range of igneous rock types is exposed and host-rock xenoliths and screens are common. The overall zonation is, from the base upward (west to east), syenite zone (sheets of fine- to coarse-grained syenite), sheeted zone (inter-layered syenitic and dioritic sheets), diorite zone (dioritic sheets with thin syenitic intercalations, massive to banded, clinopyroxene-rich cumulate rocks, scant olivine gabbro), eastern zone (dioritic sheets in predominant quartz-bearing monzonite and syenite), and the stratigraphically highest Kvingra alkaline granite. Although magmatic evolution was in batches, individual domains of the pluton and the overall magma evolution of the system display the pervasive influence of assimilation of carbonate-rich rocks, which resulted in the alkaline nature of the evolved magmas. Assimilative reaction between dioritic magmas and calc-silicate rocks resulted in partial melting of the calc-silicates and mixing of the Ca-rich melt into the host magma. Addition of Ca stabilized clinopyroxene (+plagioclase) at the expense of olivine, which led to precipitation of clinopyroxene-rich cumulates and formation of syenitic residual magmas. Invasion of the calc-silicate rocks by silicate melts resulted in melanocratic garnet + clinopyroxene monzonitic and syenitic endoskarn and magmatic skarn. Because magmatic evolution involved assimilation of calc-silicate rocks and because melt-bearing skarns and clinopyroxene-rich cumulates formed within the complex, magmatic processes responsible for forming the range of rock types in the complex are interpreted to have operated in situ. This interpretation implies that the core of the complex is a zone in which intense reaction of mafic magmas with calc-silicate rocks occurred. Successive emplacement and loading of additional mafic magma onto these zones squeezed the syenitic magmas laterally into tabular intrusions, one zone of which crops out at the exposed base of the compl