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Science 2 January 1998:
Vol. 279. no. 5347, pp. 63 - 66
DOI: 10.1126/science.279.5347.63
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Reports

Footwall Refrigeration Along a Detachment Fault: Implications for the Thermal Evolution of Core Complexes

Jean Morrison, * J. Lawford Anderson

Oxygen isotope compositions of epidote and quartz from chloritic breccias that underlie the detachment fault in the metamorphic core complex of the Whipple Mountains yielded quartz-epidote fractionations that range from 4.1 to 6.4 per mil and increase systematically toward the fault. These fractionations give mean temperatures that decrease from ~432°C at 50 meters below the fault to ~350°C at 12 meters below the fault. This extreme thermal gradient of 82°C over 38 meters (2160°C per kilometer) is best explained by advective heat extraction by means of circulating surface-derived fluids. Models of lithospheric extension consider only conductive cooling resulting from tectonic denudation and thus require revision to include fluid-induced fault-zone refrigeration.

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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Reconstructing paleoelevation in eroded orogens.
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Geology 32, 525-528
Stable and Radiogenic Isotope Systematics in Epidote Group Minerals.
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Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry 56, 607-628
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J. Petrology 42, 901-929
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Stable Isotope Thermometry at High Temperatures.
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Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry 43, 365-413
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Stable Isotope Transport and Contact Metamorphic Fluid Flow.
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Short-Lived Oxygen Diffusion During Hot, Deep-Seated Meteoric Alteration of Anorthosite.
C. I. Mora, L. R. Riciputi, and D. R. Cole (1999)
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)