Geochemistry and palaeotectonic setting of amphibolites from the Western Tatra Mountains, southern Poland

Amphibolites from the crystalline basement of the Western Tatra Mountains, which are found as small lenses within migmatitic gneisses and mica schists, were formed during pre‐ or early Variscan amphibolite‐facies metamorphic events, and subsequently intruded by the post‐metamorphic Variscan Tatra Granite. The amphibolites occur in both the upper and lower metamorphic complexes, which are separated by a major subhorizontal shear zone in the Western Tatra Mountains. The amphibolites can be divided into three types: massive, striped and garnetiferous. The striped and massive amphibolites, concordant with a dominant S 1 foliation, and the garnet amphibolites, which cross‐cut the S 1 banding in the gneisses, were all originally intrusive dolerites. The striped amphibolites (consisting primarily of hornblende, andesine and quartz), and later, cross‐cutting garnet‐hornblende‐andesine‐quartz‐bearing amphibolites, predominate in the lower part of the dominantly migmatitic upper complex, and are exposed mainly on the ridges. The massive amphibolites, which contain a similar mineral assemblage, mainly occur in the usual unmigmatized lower structural unit. Chemical studies indicate that three amphibolite suites are present, which probably originated as a series of enriched tholeiites, similar to more recent plume‐influenced magmas, which were derived by partial melting of a spinel lherzolite with primitive mantle composition and compositionally slightly modified by crustal contamination. The amphibolites were intruded as dolerites into clastic sediments which had accumulated in an extensional basin floored by attenuated continental crust, a situation similar to that of amphibolites found in metamorphic complexes within the Variscan belt, e.g. in the Orlica–Snieznik area of the Sudetes, where amphibolites chemically similar to those in the Western Tatra also occur. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.