Uher P., Kohút M., Konečný P., Ondrejka M. & Siman P., 2014: Monazite-(Ce) in Hercynian granites and pegmatites of the Bratislava massif, Western Carpathians: compositional variations and Th-U-Pb electron-microprobe dating. Acta Geologica Slovaca, 6, 2, 215–231.

Monazite-(Ce) in Hercynian granites and pegmatites of the Bratislava massif, Western Carpathians: compositional variations and Th-U-Pb electron-microprobe dating

Monazit-(Ce) v hercýnskych granitoch a pegmatitoch bratislavskeho masívu (Západné Karpaty): variácie chemického zloženia a Th-U-Pb datovanie pomocou elektrónovej mikroanalýzy

Pavel Uher¹, Milan Kohút², Martin Ondrejka¹, Patrik Konečný² & Pavol Siman³

¹Department of Mineralogy and Petrology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina G, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia; puher@fns.uniba.sk
²Dionýz Štúr State Institute of Geology, Mlynská dolina 1, 817 04 Bratislava, Slovakia
³Geological Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 840 06 Bratislava, Slovakia

Abstract

Monazite-(Ce) represents a characteristic magmatic accessory mineral of the Hercynian peraluminous S-type granites to granodiorites and related granitic pegmatites of the Bratislava Granitic Massif (BGM), Malé Karpaty Mountains, Central Western Carpathians, SW Slovakia. Monazite forms euhedral to subhedral crystals, up to 200 μm in size, usually it is unzoned in BSE, rarely it reveals oscillatory or sector zoning. Thorium concentrations of 2 to 9 wt. % ThO₂ (≤0.09 apfu) and local elevated uranium contents (≤4.3 wt. % UO₂, ≤0.04 apfu) are characteristic for the pegmatite monazites. Both huttonite ThSiREE-1P-1 and cheralite Ca(Th,U)REE-2 substitutions took place in the studied monazite. Electron-microprobe Th-U-Pb monazite dating of the granites and pegmatites gave an isochron age of 353±2 Ma (MSWD = 0.88, n = 290), which confirmed the meso-Hercynian, Carboniferous, Lower Mississipian magmatic crystallization. An analogous age (359±11 Ma) was obtained from monazite from adjacent paragneiss, corresponding to the age of the Hercynian contact thermal metamorphism related to the granite intrusion of BGM. Monazite in some granite shows also older clastic or authigenic grains or zones (~505 to 400 Ma, with maximum of 420±7 Ma) which probably represents inherited material from the Lower Paleozoic metapelitic to metapsammitic protolith of BGM.

Key words: monazite-(Ce), Th-U-Pb EMP dating, Lower Carboniferous, granitic rocks, pegmatites, Bratislava Granitic Massif, Western Carpathians

Manuscript received: 2013-07-10

Revised version accepted: 2014-09-09