This project utilizes an innovative approach linking sophisticated 3-D thermal modeling of intruding plutons with textural modeling studies of metamorphic rocks in order to provide a new tool to investigate the processes that control pressure and temperature in mountain belts. The study will use quantitative models to interpret rock textures on a regional scale in northwest Maine as they relate to detailed aspects of the pressure-temperature-fluid flow history around intrusions that were emplaced in the middle crust during Devonian time. This work will allow refinement of thermal histories of metamorphic events in northwest Maine, permit interpretation of subtle lateral variations in mineral textures related to variations in metamorphic conditions, and illustrate how reaction mechanisms progress in different parts of a metamorphic belt due to different pressure-temperature-fluid scenarios. The general approach is applicable to an extremely broad range of metamorphic studies because unraveling metamorphic textures and linking them to a specific thermal field has the potential to provide critical insight into the development of many metamorphic systems. This project is collaborative research between B. L. Dutrow at L.S.U. and C. T. Foster at the University of Iowa. Dutrow is responsible for the thermal modeling studies and geothermobarometric determinations of pelitic rocks from the study area; Foster is responsible for documentation of textures in rocks from the study area and construction of thermodynamic and kinetic models to link them to the thermal models.
