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Journal of Petrology Advance Access originally published online on September 3, 2009
Journal of Petrology 2009 50(10):1829-1855; doi:10.1093/petrology/egp054
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Apatite Composition: Tracing Petrogenetic Processes in Transhimalayan Granitoids

Mei-Fei Chu1,2,3,*, Kuo-Lung Wang2, William L. Griffin3, Sun-Lin Chung1, Suzanne Y. O’Reilly3, Norman J. Pearson3 and Yoshiyuki Iizuka2

1Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10699, Taiwan
2Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan
3ARC National Key Centre for Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (GEMOC), Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia

RECEIVED JULY 9, 2008; ACCEPTED JULY 28, 2009


  Abstract

Apatites crystallized from different types of igneous rocks show significant variations in the abundances of some minor and trace elements. In this study, electron probe microanalysis and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry were used to determine the concentrations of 25 minor and trace elements in apatite separated from three principal rock types of the Transhimalayan igneous plutonic suite: S-type granites, the I-type Gangdese batholith and post-collisional adakites. F, Mn, Sr and rare earth elements (REE) in apatite vary systematically with the composition of the host magma and thus have high potential as petrogenetic tracers. More specifically, the F and Mn contents of apatite can be used as an indicator of magma aluminosity or differentiation index. Combined with Sr and REE data, which show significant variations in apatite from different rock types, these elements are useful for constructing ‘discrimination diagrams’. This study also reveals that apatite has the capacity to retain geochemical information about the host magma through the course of magmatic evolution. Systematic variations of Sr and REE in apatite with bulk-rock aluminosity are the results of partition competition with pre-existing and coexisting major and accessory minerals in silicate melts, and thus are useful for more detailed investigations of petrogenetic processes such as fractional crystallization and magma mixing, which is signaled by inconsistent Eu anomalies, Sr abundances and REE patterns relative to bulk-rock compositions.

KEY WORDS: apatite; apatite minor elements; apatite trace elements; igneous petrogenesis

*Corresponding author. Telephone: +61 2 9850 6125. Fax: +61 2 9850 6904. E-mail: mchu{at}els.mq.edu.au


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