February 2018
Resource ID
521
Access
Open
Contributed by
Admin User
Volume
50
Named person(s)
Michael Stearns
Date
12 February 18
Number
2
Abstract
Contact aureoles record the cumulative effects on wall rocks of magma emplacement. Like the plutons they surround, contact aureoles have long been regarded to form geologically instantaneously. Protracted incremental emplacement of plutons must be reconciled with the wallrock record of heat and mass transfer. Fundamental questions include how heat and material move from intrusions into their aureoles and how long that process takes. The Little Cottonwood stock is surrounded by a ~2 km-wide contact aureole that contains prograde AFM mineral assemblages in the pelitic layers of the Proterozoic Big Cottonwood Formation. The Alta stock is surrounded by a well characterized ~1 km contact aureole containing both
prograde AFM and CMS mineral assemblages in Ophir
Shale and Mississippian dolostones, respectively.