The Chinamora Batholith: diapiric intrusion or interference fold?

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Abstract
Mapping of the Chinamora Batholith of Rhodesia has revealed a complex suite of rock types which include old gneisses with infolded green-stone belt relics (metamorphosed to upper am-phibolite and granulite facies), intruded by a series of granitic (s.l.) bodies. The youngest of these granites is a distinctive porphyritic adamellite which is shown to have been deformed by two phases of tight folding. It is argued that the intensity of these deformations would effectively obscure any earlier intrusive relationship between the porphyritic adamellite (or older intrusive granites) and the greenstone belt rocks. The granite-greenstone distribution of the Chinamora area is explained as a large scale interference fold and it is suggested that small folds measured in part of the Chinamora Batholith as well as folds apparent on maps of the surrounding greenstone belt rocks can be related to this large scale folding.