Mountains to Deserts: Insights from Garnet

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• Dr Anna Bird (University of Hull)
• Monday 18 January 2016, 17:00-18:00
• Harker Room 1, Department of Earth Sciences.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Matouš Ptáček.

Garnet is one of the most useful and versatile minerals it is possible to analyse. It usually forms in a wide variety of metamorphic rocks and some igneous rocks where its pressure and temperature of growth is pretty well understood. Therefore its stability relationships are generally well constrained allowing for good interpretation of geochronological and geochemical data obtained. Geochronology of garnets is particularly useful for Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf because garnet has high 147Sm/144Nd and 176Lu/177Hf ratios. Dating garnets can give insight into when metamorphic events occur and are useful for poly-metamorphic terranes as the garnet porphyroblast phase can generally be related to deformation fabrics. Garnet geochemistry is also the most widely used mineral-chemistry tool for establishing sediment provenance. It is a common part of heavy mineral assemblages, it shows a wide range in compositions, and it’s a relatively stable mineral under both weathering and burial diagenetic conditions.

This talk will cover two applications of garnet, first in a metamorphic setting looking at the timing of metamorphic events giving insights on mountain building processes in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. The second uses garnet as a provenance tool of the dust making up the Chinese Loess Plateau.

This talk is part of the Sedgwick Club talks series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Department of Earth Sciences seminars
• Harker Room 1, Department of Earth Sciences
• Sedgwick Club talks

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