FLUID INCLUSION STUDY OF THE UNEXPOSED KENTSTOWN GRANITE, CO MEATH, IRELAND

The presence of the Kentstown Granite, of inferred late Caledonian age , at a depth of 662.5 m in Co. Meath, Ireland, has recently been confi rmed by a Tara Mines, Ltd., mineral exploration borehole. The borehole was collared in basinal Brigantian shales and passed downwards into a thick sequence of Visean shallow-water carbonates that form the Milve rton Group and which unconformably overlie sediments of the Courceyan Meath and Liscartan Formations. A ca 11 m thick section of interbedded elastic and carbonate sediments unconformably overlies the granite. A petrographic and microthermometric study of fluid inclusions in the K entstown Granite, crosscutting quartz (V-1) and calcite+quartz (V-2) v eins in the granite and calcite+quartz (V-2) veins in the overlying se diments was performed on samples taken from the borehole. Aqueous-carb onic fluids (type 1 and type 2), found only in granite quartz, were th e earliest fluids to have circulated through the granite. The estimate d trapping conditions for these earliest fluids are ca 300-330 degrees C and ca 1.6 kbar. Later low-salinity (<9 equiv. wt% NaCL) fluids of moderate (ca 150-250 degrees C) temperature of homogenization (T-H) an d Of probable meteoric origin occur as secondary inclusions in granite quartz and as primary and secondary inclusions in V-1 vein quartz (ty pe 3). Moderate-salinity (ca 10-15 equiv. wt% NaCl), moderate-T-H (ca 110-200 degrees C) fluids (type 4) that were trapped as secondary incl usions in granite and in V-1 vein quartz are of uncertain origin. Low- T-H (ca 50-150 degrees C), high-salinity (ca 20-27 equiv. wt% NaCl) Ca Cl2-rich brines (type 5) occur as primary inclusions in V-2 vein calci te and quartz and also as secondary inclusions in V-1 vein quartz and in granite quartz. Comparisons of the type 1, type 2 and type 3 fluid inclusion populations recorded in the present study with those from ot her Irish Caledonian granites strongly suggest a similar fluid evoluti onary history. Furthermore, the low-temperature CaCl2-rich brines (typ e 5) of this study, which must be syn- to post-lower Carboniferous in age, have correlatives both in Irish Caledonian granites and in the Lo wer Carboniferous base-metal deposits of the Irish midlands.