Age stages of metamorphism at the Kitoi Sillimanite schist deposit, southeastern Prisayan’e

Abstract

The Irkut Block with dominant rocks of the Sharyzhalgai Series and Kitoi Block with prevalence of the Kitoi Series rocks are the main structures of the Presayanian basement elevation of the Siberian Craton. Two stages of metamorphism, Neoarchean (2.6–2.7 Ga) and Paleoproterozoic (1.85–1.87 Ga), were established for the granulitic complexes of these blocks. The rocks of the Kitoi sillimanite schist deposit composed of sillimanite, andalusite-sillimanite, and garnet-sillimanite schists and gneisses underwent by intense ultrametamorphic transformations which led to the formation of sillimanite- and garnet-bearing plagioclase and feldspar migmatites, and also granites, sienites, and granite-pegmatites. The geochronological study of melanocratic schists and leucocratic plagiogneisses-the typical rocks of the Kitoi deposit-showed the manifestation of metamorphism only at the Archean and Proterozoic boundary (2450–2550 Ma).