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Coalification and graphitization in high-pressure schists in New Caledonia

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Abstract

The northern portion of the Tertiary high-pressure schist belt in New Caledonia contains, from west to east, a metamorphic progression from lawsonite-albite facies through glaucophanitic greenschists to eclogitic albite-epidote amphibolites. This belt is flanked to the west by Upper Cretaceous-Eocene metasediments, of prehnite-pumpellyite grade. Paraschists throughout this whole sequence contain abundant carbonaceous material which shows a progressive metamorphism from coal to graphite. Structural analysis of lithostatic load and oxygen isotope data have provided a PT profile for the carbon metamorphism. In the prehnite-pumpellyite metasediments, phytoclasts were progressively coalified to anthracite rank under PT conditions which extended up to 3 kb/255 ° C at the lawsonite isograd where graphite first appears. On the high grade side of the lawsonite isograd a transitional mixed zone of continued coalification and graphitization occurred within the PT range 3 kb/255 ° C to 5.5 kb/335 ° C which included the ferroglaucophane isograd. Immediately beyond this zone all phytoclasts were completely graphitized before the epidote isograd was reached at 6.3 kb/ 390 ° C. The prevailing metamorphic environment retarded coalification, but accelerated graphitization, under conditions of high pressure and a low temperature gradient (7 ° C/km) that had been generated within the sedimentary pile by rapid tectonic thickening and consequent deep burial.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of Newcastle, 2308, New South Wales, Australia

    C. F. K. Diessel

  2. Department of Geology, University of Auckland, New Zealand

    R. N. Brothers & P. M. Black

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  1. C. F. K. Diessel
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  2. R. N. Brothers
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  3. P. M. Black
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Diessel, C.F.K., Brothers, R.N. & Black, P.M. Coalification and graphitization in high-pressure schists in New Caledonia. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 68, 63–78 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00375447

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