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Evolution of fluid phases associated with lithium pegmatites from SE Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

Martin P. Whitworth  and
Andrew H. Rankin
Martin P. Whitworth
Affiliation:
Dept of Geology, Imperial College, London, SW72BP
Andrew H. Rankin
Affiliation:
Dept of Geology, Imperial College, London, SW72BP
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Abstract

Fluid inclusions in quartz from internally zoned barren and spodumene-bearing pegmatites associated with the Leinster granite of SE Ireland represent a variety of early and late hydrothermal fluids responsible for the development of pegmatites. Microthermometry and optical examination reveal two main populations of inclusions. The first (Type 1) comprises low-moderate salinity brines which homogenized at temperatures up to about 400 °C. The second (Type 2) appear to postdate the first population and are characteristically more saline and homogenized at temperatures mostly below 250 °C. Isochores for model type 1 inclusion fluids indicate that a late-magmatic/early-hydrothermal fluid developed from the Leinster granite at 675 °C. and 2.5 kbar and cooled isobarically into the spodumene stability field where complete crystallization of the pegmatites took place. Later, more saline, type 2 fluids of unknown origin may have contributed to the alteration of spodumene to muscovite and albite with the accompanying release of lithium from the lattice of spodumene.

Keywords

fluid inclusionspegmatitelithiumLeinsterIrelandisobaric cooling
Type
Petrology and Geochemistry
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 53 , Issue 371 , June 1989 , pp. 271 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1989

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