A Pan-African age for the HP-HT granulite gneisses of Zabargad island: implications for the early stages of the Red Sea rifting

International audienceUp to now the age of granulite gneisses intruded by the Zabargad mantle diapir has been an unsolved problem. These gneisses may represent either a part of the adjacent continental crust primarily differentiated during the Pan African orogeny, or new crust composed of Miocene clastic sediments deposited in a-developing rift, crosscut by a diabase dike swarm and gabbroic intrusions, and finally metamorphosed and deformed by the mantle diapir. Previous geochronological results obtained on Zabargad island and Al Lith and Tihama-Asir complexes (Saudi Arabia) suggest an Early Miocene age of emplacement for the Zabargad mantle diapir during the early opening of the Red Sea rift. In contrast, Sm-Nd and Rb-Sr internal isochrons yield Pan African dates for felsic and basic granulites collected 500-600 m from the contact zone with the peridotites. Devoid of evidence for retrograde metamorphic, minerals from a felsic granulite provide well-defined Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd dates of 655 +/- 8 and 699 +/- 34 Ma for the HP-HT metamorphic event (10 kbar, 850-degrees-C). The thermal event related to the diapir emplacement is not recorded in the Sm-Nd and Rb-Sr systems of the studied gneisses; in contrast, the development of a retrograde amphibolite metamorphic paragenesis strongly disturbed the Rb-Sr isotopic system of the mafic granulite. The initial Nd-143/Nd-144 ratio of the felsic granulite is higher than the contemporaneous value for CHUR and is in agreement with other Nd isotopic data for samples of upper crust from the Arabian shield. This result suggests that source rocks of the felsic granulite were derived at 1.0 to 1.2 Ga from either an average MORB-type mantle or a local 2.2 Ga LREE-depleted mantle. Zabargad gneisses represent a part of the disrupted lower continental crust of the Pan African Afro-Arabian shield. During early stages of the Red Sea rifting in the Miocene, these Precambrian granulites were intruded and dragged upwards by a rising peridotite diapir