Ultrahigh-pressure and high-pressure metamorphic terranes in orogenic belts: Reactions, fluids and geological processes: Preface
Abstract
The volume is devoted to ultrahigh pressure (UHP) and high pressure (HP) metamorphic terranes within orogenic belts, which play a leading role in understanding processes of re-shaping continental margins. The UHP–HP metamorphic rocks keep ‘records’ related to deep subductions of continental crust into the Earth's mantle, and their return back to the surface as important components of mountain belts.
Exposures of HP/UHP rocks, once thought to be restricted to European mountain systems, are being found in Asia, Africa, South and North Americas, Antarctica and Greenland. They provide valuable information on the mineral reactions, fluid circulation between subducted slabs and mantle wedges, partial melt, rheology, geochemistry and timing of processes operating at depth up to ~300 km.
Multidisciplinary approaches in studies of UHP–HP terranes continue to provide better understanding of their formation including mechanisms and rate of the subduction/exhumation, fluid/ melt circulations, metamorphic reactions, geochemical recycling and deep storage of light elements.