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Spurrite from northern Coahuila, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

A. K. Temple  and
E. Wm. Heinrich
A. K. Temple
Affiliation:
E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, Delaware; Dept. Geology and Mineralogy, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
E. Wm. Heinrich
Affiliation:
E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, Delaware; Dept. Geology and Mineralogy, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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Summary

Spurrite-bearing contact-metasomatic mineral assemblages occur with a few of the many rhyolite stocks intrusive into Georgetown (Cretaceous) limestone in the Encantada district of northern Coahuila, Mexico. The contact-metasomatic suites are found associated only with rhyolites that solidified within the thick Georgetown limestone. Rhyolites that penetrated through the limestone have sharp contacts commonly marked by perlitic contact breccias. The structural form of all the rhyolites indicates intrusion under high pressure.

Three distinct contact-mineral suites have been recognized: Foliated garnetwollastonite rocks occur adjacent to the rhyolite, whereas spurrite is only found further from the intrusive. The inner side of the spurrite-bearing zone is characterized by foliated spurrite-garnet-periclase rocks, whereas the outer side of the spurrite zone consists of a massive, coarse-grained, spurrite-rankinite-periclase rock, which has a sharp contact with the outermost foliated marble zone. At one location, massive spurrite occupies ‘dikes’ radial to the intrusive, which are post-dated by wollastonite-bearing gehlenite-diopside rocks.

It is concluded that the stages of rhyolite emplacement include: First, preliminary high-pressure structural site preparation accompanied by intrusion of rhyolite and metasomatic introduction of Si and Al into preheated cap rock. Then crystallization of the metasomatic zone, under conditions of upward pressure exerted by the rhyolite, to give the features of the spurrite zone; followed by conversion of the inner side of the spurrite zone to a wollastonite-bearing assemblage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical magazine and journal of the Mineralogical Society , Volume 33 , Issue 265 , June 1964 , pp. 841 - 852
Copyright
Copyright © 1964, The Mineralogical Society

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References

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