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The Adamello intrusive suite is a composite batholith in Northern Italy, with an estimated 2000 km3 volume, assembled incrementally over a time span of 10 to 12 million years. The history of crystallization has been studied in detail through laser ablation ICP-MS and SIMS U–Pb geochronology of zircon, which records prolonged crystallization of each of the different intrusive units at mid-crustal levels between 43·47 and 33·16 Ma. The magmas were episodically extracted from this storage area and ascended to the final intrusion level at ∼6 km paleo-depth. Each batch of melt cooled very rapidly down to the ambient temperature of 250°C, evidenced by distinct cooling paths recorded by amphibole, biotite and K-feldspar 40Ar/39Ar dates. The magma source area was moving from SW to NE with time, causing increasing thermal maturity in the mid-crustal reservoir. The resulting temporal trend of higher degrees of crustal assimiliation in the course of the evolution of the magmatic system can be traced through Hf and O isotopes in zircon. Rough estimates of magma emplacement rates ('magma flux') yield very low values in the range of 10-4 km3/yr, typical of mid-to-upper crustal plutons and increase with time. Although we cannot discern a decrease of magma flux from our own data, we anticipate that a dramatic decrease of magma flux between 33 and 31 Ma along the northern contact lead to cessation of magma emplacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ti diffusion in zircon is highly anisotropic. • Ti diffusion parallel to the c-axis in zircon is facilitated through aligned interstitial sites. • Ti-in-zircon temperatures do not always reflect crystallization conditions. Ti-in-zircon thermometry has become a widely used tool to determine zircon crystallization temperatures, in part due to reports of extremely sluggish Ti diffusion perpendicular to the crystallographic c-axis in this mineral. We have conducted Ti-in-zircon diffusion experiments, focusing on diffusion parallel to the c-axis, at 1 atm pressure between 1100 and 1540 °C, with oxygen fugacities equivalent to air and the Ni-NiO buffer. There is no resolvable dependence of Ti diffusion in zircon upon silica or zirconia activity, or upon oxygen fugacity. The diffusion coefficient of Ti in zircon is found to be a weak function of its own concentration, spanning less than 0.5 log units across any profile induced below 1300 °C. Ti diffusion in zircon, parallel to the c-axis at 1 atm pressure, is well described using: log 10 ⁡ D Ti = [ 1.34 (± 1.44) − 555425 (± 44820) J mol − 1 2.303 RT (K) ] m 2 s − 1 where R is the gas constant in J/(mol⋅K). In conjunction with diffusion coefficients for Ti in zircon perpendicular to the c-axis reported by Cherniak and Watson (2007), strong diffusion anisotropy for Ti in zircon is observed. Diffusion parallel to the c-axis is ∼4-5 orders of magnitude faster than diffusion perpendicular to the c-axis within the experimentally constrained temperature range shared between these two studies (1540-1350 °C). This difference increases if the data are extrapolated to lower temperatures and reaches ∼7.5-11 orders of magnitude between 950-600 °C, a typical range for zircon crystallization. Diffusion of Ti in natural zircons will predominantly occur parallel to the c-axis, and the Ti-in-zircon thermometer appears susceptible to diffusive modification under some crustal conditions. Temperatures calculated using this system should therefore be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, particularly when considering high-T, slowly cooled, reheated and/or small zircons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]