The Valpelline Series (Dent-Blanche Tectonic System, Western Italian Alps) is a sector of lower continental crust, which consists of Permian migmatitic metapelite with different mineral assemblages (i.e., garnet-, cordierite- and orthopyroxene-bearing), minor amphibolite and marble, intruded by aplite and pegmatite. Widespread melt production in metapelite and locally in amphibolite occurred during the development of the regional foliation. The P–T conditions during migmatisation, estimated using conventional geothermobarometers, range between 800–900 °C and 0.5–0.8 GPa, with a difference of up to ∼50 °C between cordierite- and orthopyroxene-bearing migmatites, the latter reaching higher temperatures. The Valpelline Series shows rock types, metamorphic assemblages, P–T conditions and published ages of high-temperature regional metamorphism like the archetypal lower crust section of the Ivrea-Verbano Zone in the Southern Western Alps. The latter likely represents an external portion of the same extending lower crust, at the onset of the Tethyan rifting due to lithospheric extension and asthenospheric rising.

The study presents detailed petrographical, geophysical, structural and geochemical data of the internal nappes zone to establish the deformational history, origin and tectonic setting and constrain the crustal growth and evolution of the active margin of the Dahomeyide belt. Two main lithological units, (i) deformed meta-granitoids (migmatites and gneisses) and (ii) undeformed granitoids, dominate the internal nappes zone. The granitoids are generally I-type, metaluminous to weakly peraluminous, low-K tholeiite to high-K calc-alkaline and of tonalite, granodiorite and granite affinity. The overall trace element patterns of the studied granitoids characterized by the enriched LILE and depleted HFS, with negative peaks of Nb-Ta, Sr, P and Ti, are indications of arc-related magmatism. Structural analysis reveals four deformation phases (D1-D4). D1 represents Northwest-Southeast (NW-SE) Pan African shortening associated with a continent-continent collision, resulting in westward nappe stacking. Progressive NW-SE shortening resulted in D2 and D3 top-to-the-NW dextral and sinistral thrusting events during the Pan-African orogeny. D4 is an extensional event likely associated with the orogenic collapse phase. The gneisses and migmatites, with dominant axial planar foliations, point to their formation in a collisional setting or influence by the Pan-African collisional processes. Continental-arc signatures in these rocks imply continental subduction during their protolith formation. The intrusive granitoid and pegmatite are undeformed, meaning late- to post-orogenic emplacement. These findings suggest that the internal nappes zone archived the subduction-collision and post-collisional phase of the Pan-African orogeny and recorded large-scale migmatization and granitoid emplacement due to partial melting of thickened lower crust between Mid-Cryogenian and late Ediacaran.

U–Pb geochronology, Hf isotopes and trace-element chemistry of zircon grains from migmatite of the upper Sutlej valley (Leo Pargil), Northwest Himalaya, reveal a protracted geological evolution and constrain anatexis and tectonothermal processes in response to Himalayan orogenesis. U–Pb geochronology and ϵHf record separate clusters of ages on the concordia plots in the migmatite (1050–950 Ma, 850–790 Ma and 650–500 Ma). The 1050–950 Ma zircon population supports a provenance from magmatic units related to the assembly of Rodinia. A minor amount of Palaeoproterozoic grains were likely derived from the Indian craton. The potential source rock of the 930–800 Ma detrital zircons may be granitoid present in Greater Himalayan rocks themselves and the Aravalli Range, which has 870–800 Ma granitic rocks. The arc-type basement within the Himalayan–Tibet orogen recorded (900–600 Ma) igneous activity, which may depict a northeasterly extension of juvenile terranes in the Arabian–Nubian Shield. The granitoid of 800 Ma may be a potential source for 790 Ma detrital zircons owing to scatter in 206/238 dates. The 650–500 Ma zircon population suggests their derivation from the East African Orogen and Ross–Delamerian Orogen of Gondwana. The Cambrian–Ordovician magmatism during the Bhimphedian Orogeny and observed late Neoproterozoic to Ordovician detrital zircons have been derived to some extent from Greater Himalayan magmatic sources. We found no detrital zircon grains that cannot be explained as coming from local sources. One sample yielded a discordia lower intercept age of 15.6 ± 2.2 Ma, the age of melt crystallization.

Orthopyroxene-bearing felsic gneiss occurs as foliation-parallel layers and bands together with aluminous granulite, mafic granulite, and quartzofeldspathic granulite in the Chilka Lake migmatite complex of the Proterozoic Eastern Ghats Belt, India. The rock was classified previously as charnockite which underwent granulite-facies metamorphism. Field and textural features of this rock show evidence of the partial melting of a biotite-bearing greywacke protolith. Orthopyroxene with/without garnet and cordierite were produced with K-feldspar as peritectic phases of incongruent melting of presumed metaluminous sediments. Fluid-inclusion data suggest the presence of high-density CO2-rich fluids during peak metamorphism, which are similar to those found in associated aluminous granulite. Whole-rock major and trace element data show wide variability of the source materials whereas REE distributions show enriched LREE and flat HREE patterns. Zircon grains from representative samples show the presence of inherited cores having spot dates (SHRIMP) in the range c. 1790–3270 Ma. The overgrowth on zircon was formed predominantly during c. 780–730 Ma and sporadically during c. 550–520 Ma. Some neoblastic zircons with c. 780–730 Ma ages are also present. U-rich dark zones surrounding cores appear partially metamictised, but spot ages from this zone vary within c. 1000–900 Ma. The <1000 Ma ages represent metamorphism that mirrors the events in associated aluminous granulite. The sources of metaluminous sediments are speculative as the rock compositions are largely modified under granulite-facies metamorphism and partial melting. Considering the accretionary tectonic setting of the Eastern Ghats Belt during the c. 1000–900 Ma time frame, a greywacke-type protolith for the migmatite complex has been proposed.

A suite of Jurassic–Cretaceous migmatites was newly identified in the Liaodong Peninsula of the eastern North China Craton (NCC). Anatexis is commonly associated with crustal thickening. However, the newly identified migmatites were formed during strong lithospheric thinning accompanied by voluminous magmatism and intense deformation. Field investigations show that the migmatites are spatially associated with low-angle detachment faults. Numerous leucosomes occur either as isolated lenses or thin layers (dykes), parallel to or cross-cutting the foliation. Peritectic minerals such as titanite and sillimanite are distributed mainly along the boundaries of reactant minerals or are accumulated along the foliation. Most zircons show distinct core–rim structures, and the rims have low Th/U ratios (0.01–0.24). Zircon U–Pb dating results indicate that the protoliths of the migmatites were either the Late Triassic (224–221 Ma) diorites or metasedimentary rocks deposited sometime after c. 1857 Ma. The zircon overgrowth rims record crystallization ages of 173–161 Ma and 125 Ma, which represent the formation time of leucosomes. These ages are consistent with those reported magmatic events in the Liaodong Peninsula and surrounding areas. The leucosomes indicate a strong anatectic event during the Jurassic–Cretaceous period. Partial melting occurred through the breakdown of muscovite and biotite with the presence of water-rich fluid under a thermal anomaly regime. The possible mechanism that caused the 173–161 Ma and 125 Ma anatectic events was intimately related to the regional crustal extension during the lithospheric thinning of the NCC. Meanwhile, the newly generated melts further weakened the rigidity of the crust and enhanced the extension.

Low-pressure regional aureoles with steep metamorphic field gradients are critical to understanding progressive metamorphism in high-temperature metasedimentary rocks. Delicately layered pelitic and psammitic metasedimentary rocks at Mt Stafford, central Australia, record a greenschist- to granulite-facies Palaeoproterozoic regional aureole, associated with S-type granite plutons, reflecting metamorphism in the range 500–800 °C and at ∼3 kbar. The rocks experienced minimal deformation during metamorphism and partial melting. Partial melting textures evolve progressively along the steep metamorphic field gradient from the incipient stages of melting marked by cuspate grains with low dihedral angles, to melt proportions sufficient to form diatexite with schollen. Phase equilibria modelling in the NCKFMASHTO system for pelitic, semi-pelitic and high- and low-ferromagnesian psammitic samples quantitatively illustrates the dependence of partial melting on rock composition and water volume. Pelitic compositions are more fertile than psammitic compositions when the water content in the rocks is low, especially during the early stages of melting. The whole-rock ferromagnesian component additionally influences melt fertility, with ferromagnesian-rich psammite being more fertile than psammite with a lower ferromagnesian component. Subtle variations in free water content can result in obvious changes in melt volume but limited variation in melt composition. Distinct melting histories of pelitic and psammitic rocks inferred from field relationships may be partially attributed to potential differences in water volume retained to super-solidus conditions. Melt composition is more dependent on the rock composition than the variation in water content.

Cordierite is a characteristic mineral of many peraluminous felsic igneous rocks. A combination of T-P-X parameters, which overlap the stability conditions for felsic magmas, control its formation. Critical among these parameters are relatively low T, low P, and typically high (Mg+Fe2+), Mg/Fe2+, A/CNK, aAl2O3, and fO2. Spatial and textural information indicate that cordierite may originate in one of three principal ways in felsic igneous rocks: Type 1 Metamorphic: (a) xenocrystic (generally anhedral, many inclusions, spatial proximity to country rocks and pelitic xenoliths); (b) restitic (generally anhedral, high-grade metamorphic inclusions); Type 2 Magmatic: (a,b) peritectic (subhedral to euhedral, associated with leucosomes in migmatites or as reaction rims on garnet); (c) cotectic (euhedral, grain size compatibility with host rock, few inclusions); (d) pegmatitic (large subhedral to euhedral grains, associated with aplite-pegmatite contacts or pegmatitic portion alone); and Type 3 Metasomatic (spatially related to structural discontinuities in host, replacement of feldspar and/or biotite, intergrowths with quartz). Of these, Type 2a (peritectic) and Type 2c (cotectic) predominate in granitic and rhyolitic rocks derived from fluid-undersaturated peraluminous magmas, and Type 2d (pegmatitic) may be the most common type in fluid-saturated systems.

In the Halls Creek Orogen of north-western Australia, the distance of melt migration through migmatitic metasedimentary rocks and adjacent metabasites is partly constrained by relationships of leucosomes and small mafic magma veins to rock boundaries and structural elements. Stromatic leucosomes in metasediments are cut by a network of small extensional fractures and shear zones, oriented steeply during melt migration. These shear zones allowed cm- to 10 m-scale migration of felsic magma derived by in situ anatexis. In the adjacent metabasite layers, a similar shear array allowed injection of H2O-undersaturated mafic to ultramafic magma, locally dehydrating and chemically modifying these rocks. However, these mafic to ultramafic veinlets are too mafic to be explained by in situ anatexis, necessitating an external magma source. Also, the lack of felsic veinlets cutting metabasites, and mafic veinlets cutting metasediments, requires that vertical inter-connectivity of these fracture systems was restricted. We propose along-layer migration of mafic to ultramafic magma through the metabasite, assisted by horizontal connection of the shear zones. This migration occurred independantly of metre-scale felsic magma migration in the adjacent metasediments, even though these two deformation-assisted magma migration systems may have been operating at the same time.

New petrological and U–Pb zircon geochronological information has been obtained from intrusive plutonic rocks and migmatites from the Cap de Creus massif (Eastern Pyrenees) in order to constrain the timing of the thermal and tectonic evolution of this northeasternmost segment of Iberia during late Palaeozoic time. Zircons from a deformed syntectonic quartz diorite from the northern Cap de Creus Tudela migmatitic complex yield a mean age of 298.8±3.8 Ma. A syntectonic granodiorite from the Roses pluton in the southern area of lowest metamorphic grade of the massif has been dated at 290.8±2.9 Ma. All the analysed zircons from two samples of migmatitic rocks yield inherited ages from the Precambrian metasedimentary protolith (with two main age clusters at c. 730–542 Ma and c. 2.9–2.2 Ga). However, field structural relationships indicate that migmatization occurred synchronously with the emplacement of the quartz dioritic magmas at c. 299 Ma. Thus, the results of this study suggest that subduction-related calc-alkaline magmatic activity in the Cap de Creus was coeval and coupled with D2 dextral transpression involving NNW–SSE crustal shortening during Late Carboniferous – Early Permian time (c. 299–291 Ma). Since these age determinations are within the range of those obtained for undeformed (or slightly deformed) calc-alkaline igneous rocks from NE Iberia, it follows that the Cap de Creus massif would represent a zone of intense localization of D2 transpression and subsequent D3 ductile wrenching that extended into the Lower Permian during a transitional stage between the Variscan and Cimmerian cycles.

Several authors have proposed that granitic melt accumulation and transport from the source region occurs in networks of connected melt-filled veins and dykes. These models envisage the smallest leucosomes as ‘rivulets’ that connect to feed larger dykes that form the ‘rivers’ through which magma ascends through the sub-solidus crust. This paper critically reviews this ‘rivulets-feeding-rivers’ model. It is argued that such melt-filled networks are unlikely to develop in nature, because melt flows and accumulates well before a fully connected network can be established. In the alternative stepwise accumulation model, flow and accumulation is transient in both space and time. Observations on migmatites at Port Navalo, France, that were used to support the existence of melt-filled networks are discussed and reinterpreted. In this interpretation, the structures in these migmatites are consistent with the collapse and draining of individual melt batches, supporting the stepwise accumulation model.

India–Asia collision resulted in crustal thickening and shortening, metamorphism and partial melting along the 2200 km-long Himalayan range. In the core of the Greater Himalaya, widespread in situ partial melting in sillimanite+K-feldspar gneisses resulted in formation of migmatites and Ms+Bt+Grt+Tur±Crd±Sil leucogranites, mainly by muscovite dehydration melting. Melting occurred at shallow depths (4–6 kbar; 15–20 km depth) in the middle crust, but not in the lower crust. 87Sr/86Sr ratios of leucogranites are very high (0·74–0·79) and heterogeneous, indicating a 100 crustal protolith. Melts were sourced from fertile muscovite-bearing pelites and quartzo-feldspathic gneisses of the Neo-Proterozoic Haimanta–Cheka Formations. Melting was induced through a combination of thermal relaxation due to crustal thickening and from high internal heat production rates within the Proterozoic source rocks in the middle crust. Himalayan granites have highly radiogenic Pb isotopes and extremely high uranium concentrations. Little or no heat was derived either from the mantle or from shear heating along thrust faults. Mid-crustal melting triggered southward ductile extrusion (channel flow) of a mid-crustal layer bounded by a crustal-scale thrust fault and shear zone (Main Central Thrust; MCT) along the base, and a low-angle ductile shear zone and normal fault (South Tibetan Detachment; STD) along the top. Multi-system thermochronology (U–Pb, Sm–Nd, 40Ar–39Ar and fission track dating) show that partial melting spanned ̃24–15 Ma and triggered mid-crustal flow between the simultaneously active shear zones of the MCT and STD. Granite melting was restricted in both time (Early Miocene) and space (middle crust) along the entire length of the Himalaya. Melts were channelled up via hydraulic fracturing into sheeted sill complexes from the underthrust Indian plate source beneath southern Tibet, and intruded for up to 100 km parallel to the foliation in the host sillimanite gneisses. Crystallisation of the leucogranites was immediately followed by rapid exhumation, cooling and enhanced erosion during the Early–Middle Miocene.

The mode of occurrence of borosilicates and the breakdown fronts of prograde tourmaline (tourmaline-out isograd) in three anatectic migmatite regions of the Ryoke metamorphic belt, SW Japan, are reported. The breakdown of tourmaline in the migmatite zones and release of boron into the melts, followed by the extraction of the boron-bearing melts from the migmatite zones occurred throughout the Ryoke metamorphic belt. Retrograde, magmatic tourmaline in interboudin partitions filled with leucosome is useful for calculating the degree of partial melting in the migmatites. Using boron contents in the leucosomes and pelitic schists, the degree of partial melting at the migmatite front of the Aoyama area is estimated to be 12 wt.%. Extraction of the boron-bearing melt is suggested by the boron-depleted nature of the migmatites. Connection of boudinage structures probably supplied the vertical pathways of the segregated melts, and major transport of the melts was accomplished by dyking. Irregularly shaped, amoeboid tourmaline locally occurs on the high-temperature side of the tourmaline-out isograds in the Yanai and Komagane areas, implying incomplete extraction of boron-bearing melts from those areas. Discriminating retrograde from prograde tourmaline enables correct recognition of the tourmaline-out isograd. The amount of retrograde tourmaline in migmatites can potentially be used as an indicator of the degree of melt extraction from them.

The Cooma Complex of southeastern New South Wales comprises an andalusite-bearing S-type granodiorite surrounded by migmatites and low-pressure metamorphosed pelitic and psammitic sediments. The migmatite formed by the melting reaction:

Biotite + Andalusite + K-feldspar + Quartz + V = Cordierite + Liquid

at about 350–400 MPa , 670-730°C.

The melanosome consists of biotite + cordierite + andalusite + K-feldspar + plagioclase + quartz + ilmenite, whereas the leucosome consists of cordierite + K-feldspar + quartz with extremely rare biotite and plagioclase. In a closed system, freezing of the leucosome melt patches should have resulted in cordierite back-reaction with melt to produce biotite and andalusite. The virtually anhydrous mineralogy of the leucosome patches, lack of cordierite reaction and the absence of biotite selvedges at the leucosome-melanosome contacts, indicates that the melt did not completely solidify in situ. These observations can be explained by an initial peritectic melting reaction in the migmatite being arrested from back-reaction upon cooling because of the removal of hydrous melt, enabling leucosome cordierite to escape back-reaction. We propose that the melanosome is the residue of partial melting but that the leucosome patches do not represent frozen melt segregations but rather the liquidus minerals (cumulates) which precipitated from the melt.

In the restite-rich granodiorite from the core of the Cooma Complex, cordierite of similar composition to that in the migmatite has reaction rims of biotite and andalusite and there are coexisting biotite and andalusite in the matrix. The granodiorite consisted of about 50 wt% melt together with resite biotite, quartz and plagioclase, which can possibly be identified in the surrounding migmatite. Previous work suggested that the Cooma Granodiorite can be derived from a mixture of the surrounding metasediments which are of similar composition in the high and low-grade areas surrounding the granodiorite. Re-examinatibn of those data shows that the high-grade metasediments are more An-rich than the low-grade rocks. The Cooma Granodiorite is very similar to the high-grade rocks in terms of Or-Ab-An ratio. This suggests derivation of the Cooma Granodiorite from the high-grade rocks and not from the relatively An-poor low-grade rocks which are typical of exposed sediments in the Lachlan Fold Belt. It is most likely that the granodiorite and envelope of high-grade rocks have been emplaced into the compositionally different lower grade rocks from slightly greater depths.