CALEDONIAN ECLOGITE-FACIES METAMORPHISM OF EARLY PROTEROZOIC PROTOLITHS FROM THE NORTHEAST GREENLAND ECLOGITE PROVINCE

High-pressure metamorphic assemblages occur in mafic, ultramafic and a few intermediate rocks in a gneiss complex that covers an area of app roximately 400 x 100 km in the North-East Greenland Caledonides. Detai led petrologic and geochronologic studies were carried out on three sa mples in order to clarify the P-T-t evolution of this eclogite provinc e. Geothermobarometry yields temperature estimates of 700-800 degrees C and pressure estimates of at least 1.5 GPa from an eclogite sensu st ricto and as high as 2.35 GPa for a garnet websterite. The eclogite de fines a garnet-clinopyroxene-amphibole-whole rock Sm-Nd isochron age o f 405 +/- 24 Ma (MSWD 0.9). Isofacial garnet websterites define garnet -clinopyroxene-orthopyroxene-amphibole-whole rock-(biotite) ages of 43 9 +/- 8 Ma (MSWD = 2.1) for a coarse-grained sample and 370 +/- 12 Ma (MSWD = 0.6) for a finer-grained variety. Overgrowths on zircons from the fine-grained pyroxenite and the eclogite give a pooled Pb-206/U-23 8 SHRIMP age of 377 +/- 7 Ma (n = 4). Significantly younger Rb-Sr biot ite ages of 357 +/- 8, 330 +/- 6 and 326 +/- 6 agree with young Rb-Sr, K-Ar and Ar-40/Ar-39 mineral ages from the gneiss complex and indicat e slow cooling of the eclogitic rocks. High-pressure metamorphism may have been at least 439 Ma old (Siluro-Ordovician) with cooling through amphibolite-facies conditions in the Devonian and continued crustal t hinning and exhumation well into the Carboniferous. Sm-Nd whole rock m odel ages indicate the eclogite protoliths are Early Proterozoic in ag e, while Pb-207/Pb-206 SHRIMP ages of 1889 +/- 18 and 1981 +/- 8 from anhedral zircon cores probably reflect Proterozoic metasomatism. The s amples have negative epsilon(Nd) values(-5 to -16) and elevated Sr-87/ Sr-86 ratios (0.708-0.715), consistent with field evidence that the ec logite protoliths were an integral part of the continental crust long before Caledonian metamorphism. The presence of a large Caledonian ecl ogite terrane in Greenland requires modification of current tectonic m odels that postulate subduction of Baltica beneath Laurentia during th e Caledonian orogeny.