Behaviour of rigid objects during deformation and metamorphism: a test using schists from the Bolton syncline, Connecticut, USA.

The behaviour of spherical versus highly ellipsoidal rigid objects in folded rocks relative to one another or the Earth’s surface is of particular significance for metamorphic and structural geologists. Two common porphyroblastic minerals, garnet and staurolite, approximate spherical and highly ellipsoidal shapes respectively. The motion of both phases is analysed using the axes of inflexion or intersection of one or more foliations preserved as inclusion trails within them (we call these axes FIAs, for foliation inflexion/intersection axes). For staurolite, this motion can also be compared with the distribution of the long axes of the crystals. Schists from the regionally shallowly plunging Bolton syncline commonly contain garnet and staurolite porphyroblasts, whose FIAs have been measured in the same sample. Garnet porphyroblasts pre-date this fold as they have inclusion trails truncated by all matrix foliations that trend parallel to the strike of the axial plane. However, they have remarkably consistent FIA trends from limb to limb. The FIAs trend 175° and lie 25°NNW from the 020° strike of the axial trace of the Bolton syncline. The plunge of these FIAs was determined for six samples and all lie within 30° of the horizontal. Eleven of these samples also contain staurolite porphyroblasts, which grew before, during and after formation of the Bolton syncline as they contain inclusion trails continuous with matrix foliations that strike parallel to the axial trace of this fold. The staurolite FIAs have an average trend of 035°, 15°NE from the 020° strike of the axial plane of this fold. The total amount of inclusion trail curvature in staurolite porphyroblasts, about the axis of relative rotation between staurolite and the matrix (i.e. the FIA), is greater than the angular spread of garnet FIAs. Although staurolite porphyroblasts have ellipsoidal shapes, their long axes exhibit no tendency to be preferentially aligned... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]