Petrography and geochronology of the Kuki granite, Kitakami mountains, northeastern Japan; Shallow crustal intrusion and emplacement processes of granitic magma

Suzuki, Satoshi*; Yuguchi, Takashi*; Ishiguro, Keito*; Endo, Kyoka*; Kato, Asuka*; Yokoyama, Kosuke*; Ogita, Yasuhiro  ; Yokoyama, Tatsunori   ; Sakata, Shuhei*; Ono, Takeshi*; Sasao, Eiji   

Understanding the crustal evolutionary dynamics of island arc-trench systems requires a thorough evaluation of magma chamber processes, and especially of shallow crustal granitic magma intrusion and emplacement processes. To address this, we studied the petrography and geochronology of the Kuki granite, Kitakami Mountains, northeast Japan, as an example of a non-adakitic granite at the magmatic flare-up stage. Granitic borehole samples reflect vertical variation within a magma chamber. Whole-rock chemical composition and mode data reveal a vertical transition from felsic to mafic composition with increasing depth, potentially due to gravitational fractionation of crystals in the magma chamber. The pressure and temperature history of the Kuki granite indicates no change in the magma depth with cooling from 800 to 730C, and geobarometric calculations indicate the emplacement of magma at a depth of approximately10 km. Simultaneous determination of the zircon U Pb age, Ti concentration, and Th/U yields 1) the time temperature history of granitic magma before its solidification, and 2) the correlation between temperature and Th/U in the magma. The magma chamber cooled from ca. 900 to 700C at approximately 125 Ma. The change in Th/U with temperature indicates greater fractional crystallization in the magma chamber at temperatures above 800C than below 800C. Samples from different depth exhibit common tendencies in terms of the relationship between Th/U and temperature, indicating the same system of fractional crystallization throughout the cooling magma chamber.