Magma mixing in Neoarchean granite from Nalgonda region, Eastern Dharwar Craton, India: Morphological, mineralogical and geochemical evidences

We present field, petrographic, mineralogical and whole-rock geochemical data for part of the Neoarchean granite and associated microgranular enclaves (MEs) occur in the Nalgonda region, NE part of Eastern Dharwar Craton (EDC), and demonstrate the end-member magma mixing processes in the petrogenesis of the host granite. Extensive occurrence of ME and uni-directional flow band structures (N–S trend) in all the studied outcrops exposed over about 20 km depict that intensive magma mixing–mingling occurred at magma chamber scale. MEs are the portions of intermediate mafic magma that had interacted at two stages with acidic host granite. Mixing at the initial stage promoted efficient thorough mixing which resulted in rapakivi texture and mesocratic enclaves. Wispy filament structures around these enclaves indicate that mafic magma globules were mechanically diluted in the host granite magma by chaotic advection. These filamental magmas were further linearly diluted along with convection-related flow of the host magma. Smaller mafic globules also got linearly stretched along with this flow. Upon solidification of the host magma, these wispy mafic filaments were preserved as flow structures. The second stage of mafic magma mixing did not promote thorough mixing due to the large viscosity contrast with the host granite magma and preserved their physical entity. These enclaves are melanocratic with sharp boundary and devoid of gradational contact and filament structures around it. They characteristically show network of granitic vein injection which often show crenulation folding. These evidences indicate that during the second-stage interaction, the enclave magma was rigid to plastic nature with respect to the host granite magma. Coherent linear Harker variation trend of CaO, MgO, \(\hbox {TiO}_{2}\), \(\hbox {K}_{2}\hbox {O/Na}_{2}\)O, V, Y and Sc indicates that mixing has promoted to develop chemical gradient between ME and host granite magmas. Mechanical dilution by chaotic advection must have enhanced the chemical diffusion of both magmas. Smooth decreasing Harker trend of Y content in both the magmas indicates that theyhad undergone certain degree of fractional crystallisation. In contrast, elements like Rb, Ba and Sr with large value of diffusion coefficient (D) show scattered behaviour in element–element plots suggesting that diffusive fractionation was active during chaotic advection mixing. It is concluded that heterogeneity in compositional variation of Nalgonda granite can be attributed to difference in degree of mechanical dilution of mafic magma, fractional crystallisation and diffusive fractionation. The geochemical evidences indicate the role of subduction in the evolution of these rocks.