Petrology of the Albany and Torbay Adamellite Plutons, near Albany, Western Australia

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Abstract
The Albany and Torbay Adamellites are composite plutons emplaced in Pre‐cambrian gneisses of the Albany‐Esperance Block in the vicinity of Albany, Western Australia. The gneissic country rocks have been metamorphosed to the lower granu‐lite facies at Albany and the upper amphibolite facies at Torbay. Granitized aureoles about 1 km wide, metasomatically enriched in SiO2, K2O, and various trace elements commonly including Rb, Ba, La, Pb, and Th, are developed in the gneisses around both plutons. Field relations suggest late‐kinematic magmatic emplacement of the Adamellites in the catazone. Both show chemical variation trends comparable with the trends normally associated with fractional crystallization of calc‐alkali magmas, and their normative compositions correspond with the thermal trough in the system An‐Ab‐Or‐Q‐H2O at 4–7 kb PH2o, suggesting an origin involving crystal‐liquid equilibria at a water vapour pressure of about this value. The initial 87Sr/86Sr ratio of 0.7118 for the Albany Adamellite is consistent with derivation of the magma from crustal rocks. The late‐kinematic field characteristics of the plutons and the limited isotopic data available are compatible with emplacement and crystallization during the closing stages of orogeny and regional metamorphism. The magmas are believed to have been generated not at their present sites of emplacement, but in a deeper, higher‐temperature zone of the crust, with magma generated during an earlier phase of the orogeny.