Pseudomigmatites in the Abitau Lake Area, District of Mackenzie, Northwest Territories, Canada

Abstract

The Abitau Lake area, N.W.T., chiefly consists of medium-to-coarse-grained quartzo-feldspathic gneisses. Many of these are granoblastic, presenting little or no microscopic evidence of deformation. Others are highly tectonized and foliated varieties that sometimes form pseudomigmatites easily mistaken in the field for true migmatites formed by lit-par-lit injection of pink granite into more basic grey gneiss. The last, however, are found after detailed examination to be granitic rocks that owe their misleading appearance and distinctive fabric to deformation during isochemical amphibolite fades metamorphism. Surprisingly they are not mylonites. Their fabric, like that of the other foliated gneisses is dominated by the parallelism of dark minerals and elongated quartz crystals. It resembles that of typical European granulites and often seems largely due to compression acting in a direction normal to the foliation plane with little or no transport in that plane. Tectoniza-tion did not promote the formation of myrmekite or microperthite but may have assisted to some extent the production of epidote from hornblende in certain specimens.