Crystal Size Distribution (CSD) as a proxy of granitoid magmatic processes in southern Mexico
Distribución del tamaño de cristales (CSD) como indicador de los procesos magmáticos de granitoides en el Sur de México
María del Sol Hernández-Bernal1,*, Pedro Corona-Chávez2, Guillermo Suazo-Cruz3, Elesbaan Reséndiz-Zarco3, Ninfa Lizbeth Romero-Carrillo4, Stefano Poli5
1 Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Unidad Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8701, S/N, Indeco la Huerta, 58190, Morelia, Michoacán, México.
2 Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Avenida Francisco J. Mújica S/N, Edificio U-3, Ciudad Universitaria, 58030, Morelia, Michoacán, México.
3 Maestría en Geociencias y Planificación del Territorio, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Avenida Francisco J. Mújica S/N, Edificio U-3, Ciudad Universitaria, 58030, Morelia, Michoacán, México.
4 Facultad de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Carretera a Cerro Prieto Km 8, Ejido Ex-hacienda de Guadalupe, 67700 Linares, Nuevo León, México.
5 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Sandro Botticelli, 23, 20133, Milano, Italy.
Corresponding author: (M.S. Hernández-Bernal) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
How to cite this article:
Hernández-Bernal, M.S., Corona-Chávez, P., Suazo-Cruz, G., Reséndiz-Zarco, E., Romero- Carrillo, N.L., Poli, S., 2025, Crystal Size Distribution (CSD) as a proxy of granitoid magmatic processes in southern Mexico: Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, 77(2), A120325. http://dx.doi.org/10.18268/BSGM2025v77n2a120325
Manuscript received: February 2, 2025; Corrected manuscript received: February 28, 2025; Manuscript accepted: March 3, 2025.
ABSTRACT
Magmatic differentiation is a key process behind the diversity of continental crust rocks. Crystal Size Distribution (CSD) is a stereological-textural method that provides insights into nucleation and crystal growth, especially when integrated with geochemical and petrological data. While most CSD studies focus on igneous textures in volcanic rocks, particularly in K-feldspar and plagioclase crystals, fewer address granitoid textures. This study presents CSD analyses of eight plutonic bodies from Michoacán, southern Mexico, supported by geochemical, chronological, and thermobarometric data. These granitoids range in composition from tonalite to granite and display calc- alkaline arc signatures in major and trace elements. U-Pb zircon ages span from the Jurassic to the Miocene (164.8-20.6 Ma), suggesting long-term magmatic activity. CSD plots of plagioclase crystals indicate open magmatic systems with variable conditions, inconsistent with simple cooling. Granitoids hosting mafic microgranular enclaves show concave-up CSD trends and abrupt slope changes, implying magma mixing. Estimated average residence times (τ) range from 17 to 67 years for crystals <0.5 mm and 86 to 187 years for larger crystals (>0.5 mm), aligning with theoretical diffusion times during magma mixing and assimilation in intermediate to silicic systems. Combined CSD and thermobarometric data propose an inverse relationship between magma temperature, silica content, and crystal residence time at shallow emplacement levels. These findings provide new insights into the dynamics of crustal magma chambers and the physical parameters influencing pluton emplacement in arc-related settings.
Keywords: Crystal Size Distribution, Residence Times, Magmatic Processes, Magmatic arc, southern México.
RESUMEN
La diferenciación magmática es un proceso clave en la diversidad de las rocas de la corteza continental. La Distribución del Tamaño de Cristales (CSD, por sus siglas en inglés) es un método estereológico-textural que permite entender las etapas de nucleación y crecimiento cristalino, especialmente cuando se integra con datos geoquímicos y petrológicos. Aunque la mayoría de los estudios de CSD se enfocan en texturas ígneas de rocas volcánicas, en particular en cristales de feldespato potásico y plagioclasa, son escasos los trabajos que analizan texturas en rocas graníticas. Este estudio presenta análisis de CSD de ocho cuerpos plutónicos del estado de Michoacán, en el sur de México, apoyados en datos geoquímicos, cronológicos y termobarométricos. Estos granitoides varían en composición desde tonalitas hasta granitos y muestran firmas típicas de arcos magmáticos calcialcalinos, según sus contenidos de elementos mayores y traza. Las edades U-Pb en zircón, nuevas y compiladas, abarcan desde el Jurásico hasta el Mioceno (164.8-20.6 Ma), lo que sugiere una actividad magmática prolongada. Los diagramas CSD de plagioclasa indican sistemas magmáticos abiertos con condiciones variables, incompatibles con un enfriamiento simple. Los granitoides que contienen enclaves máficos microgranulares muestran tendencias cóncavas hacia arriba y cambios abruptos en la pendiente, lo que sugiere procesos de mezcla de magmas. El tiempo promedio de residencia (τ) estimado varía entre 17 y 67 años para cristales menores de 0.5 mm y entre 86 y 187 años para cristales mayores; tiempos comparables con los teóricos de difusión durante procesos de mezcla y asimilación en sistemas intermedios a félsicos. Los datos combinados de CSD y termobarometría proponen una relación inversa entre la temperatura del magma, el contenido de sílice y el tiempo de residencia de los cristales, en condiciones de emplazamiento somero. Estos resultados ofrecen nuevas perspectivas sobre la dinámica de las cámaras magmáticas corticales.
Palabras clave: Distribución del Tamaño de Cristales, Tiempos de Residencia, Procesos Magmáticos, Arco Magmático, sur de México.
1. Introduction
Continental crust growth and igneous rocks diversity are closely related to magmatic differentiation processes. The composition of magma evolves in proportion to the physical and chemical changes caused by the nucleation and growth of crystals and their following fractionation (Marsh, 2013). Comprehensive igneous rock textures analysis is essential to interpret magma chamber fluid dynamics and chemical processes within it, and its thermal history (Bryon et al., 1995).
Nucleation and crystal growth processes initiate the separation phase in a system that has become supersaturated (Aspillaga et al., 2023; Teran et al., 2010). Crystallization and the resulting solid fraction significantly influence magma rheology, as well as the mechanisms of segregation, ascent, and emplacement through the crust (Babazadeh et al., 2021). Crystal growth is essentially a time-dependent process (Avrami, 1939; Marsh, 1998). The crystallization of bulk magma can be characterized by typical nucleation (J₀) and growth (G₀) rates, associated with a characteristic crystallization time (τ) (Jerram and Martin, 2008). Given a timescale set by cooling, nucleation and growth are straightforwardly locally adjusted to achieve full crystallinity. This is especially so for intrusive rocks. That is, most of the completely crystalline igneous rocks are concerned with the cooling regime (Marsh, 1998). In plutons, the regular crystal size is proportional to the total cooling time. Small bodies have small crystals; crystals larger than expected for a given cooling time reflect slurries injection (Marsh, 2013).
The kinetics theory supposes that a new phase is nucleated by germ nuclei, which already exists in the old phase. The density of germinal nuclei decreases due to the conversion into growth nuclei of grains of the new phase, and their ingestion by growing grains. The relationship between the number of germinal nuclei, growth nuclei and transformed volume is expressed in terms of a characteristic timescale (Avrami, 1939).
The Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov (JMAK) formalization, often referred to as the Avrami equation (Equation 1), as a simple sigmoidal function, was initially proposed to describe the phase evolution in synthetic material systems. However, many other transformations in the life, physical, and social sciences follow a similar pattern of nucleation and growth (Shirzad and Viney, 2023).
where f(t) is the fraction of material transformed as a function of time, and k and n are constants obtained from the model.
Scale times in magmatic processes vary from seconds to some years (e.g., magma degassing) to hundreds or thousands of years (e.g., magma residence time). Likewise, the timescale could increase from mafic to felsic magmas, which is proportional to the size of the system (Costa, 2021).
2. CSD Approach to nucleation-crystal growth processes in crystalline rocks
Crystal Size Distribution (CSD) is a stereology- based method that visualizes three-dimensional space via two-dimensional sections. The CSD, i.e., the distribution of crystal size in three dimensions, is the number of crystals of a mineral per unit volume within a series of defined size intervals (Rannou and Caroff, 2010). Different practices are used in the analysis of the density and geometry of the crystal population, but crystals of interest are mainly separated and/or selected from orthogonal thin sections separated by a few microns (Bryon et al., 1994, 1995) and with images obtained with X-Ray Micro-Tomography (XRmT; Jerram and Higgins, 2007).
CSD for batch systems is calculated using the Avrami equation (Equation 1) for crystallinity related to exponential variations in time of both nucleation and growth. Equation 1 describes the way solids transform from one phase to a different one at constant temperature, and the kinetics of crystallization if nucleation occurs randomly, concerning spatial coordinates (Avrami, 1939; Hort and Spohn, 1991; Marsh, 1998; Shirzad and Viney, 2023).
According to Babazadeh et al. (2021), the CSD pattern shape establishes a correlation between the rate of a constant magma supply that resembles batch melting systems, where melt volume decreases with time through perfect fractional crystallization. Slope, y-intercept, and maximum crystal-size in the CSD plots reflect the magmatic system maturity; from simple straight non-kinked CSDs in monogenetic systems to multiply kinked, piecewise continuous CSDs in well-established ones (Hersum and Marsh, 2007; Marsh, 1988).
The natural logarithm variation of the crystal population density (i.e., the number of crystals per unit volume) with the crystal size yields a linear pattern under a consistent state of the open system (Figures 1a and 1b; Babazadeh et al., 2021). CSD graph’s slope relates the average growth rate of the crystal and the residence time through Equation 2 (Higgins, 2006; Marsh, 1988; Figure 1c).
where m = slope; G = growth rate; and τ = residence time, then:
Residence time τ (Equation 3) is interpreted as the average time a crystal remains in the crystallization reservoir when it reaches its steady state before it is evicted. It considers that the number of extracted crystals and the mass of the incoming liquid are compensated (Castro-Dorado, 2015).
Physical processes changing in the magma chamber can influence the shape of the CSD. Crustal assimilation or the mixing of crystal populations during magma ascent from a deeper to a shallower reservoir, followed by residence and episodic coarsening in upper crustal storage levels, tends to inhibit crystal nucleation and growth, resulting in kinked or curved CSD patterns (Figures 1d and 1e; Babazadeh et al., 2021).
CSD analysis has been applied in petrology from volcanic and metamorphic rocks, to lunar, Vesta and Mars rocks, and plutonic gabbroic bodies (Deb and Bhattacharyya, 2018; Díaz-Azpiroz and Fernández, 2003; Ennis and McSween, 2014; Filiberto et al., 2018; Jerram et al., 2009, 2010; Wang et al., 2019; Yu et al., 2023). CSD describes the behavior of olivine, amphiboles, pyroxenes, quartz, and potassium feldspars, but plagioclases are, by far, the most described minerals.
Crystal size has become the most prominent parameter analyzed in igneous texture studies of many different types of plutonic and volcanic rocks (Higgins, 2006). However, the felsic plutonic rocks case study is still scarce, standing out from the work in potassium feldspars at Cathedral Peak (Higgins, 2000). The complex texture of many granitoids is related to within-crystal heterogeneities, and the common alteration occurrence (Higgins, 2017).
In granitic rocks, plagioclase is usually the first phase crystallizing throughout the thermal history of the rock, varying from calcic to more sodic compositions (Bryon et al., 1994). CSD analysis was obtained in plagioclase crystals for their abundance and distinctive geometric features (ratio of crystallographic axes). Further, in binary images, the outline of the plagioclases can be well distinguished from the mafic minerals. Also, plagioclases show stability in a wide range of pressure and temperature conditions, and micro-texture sensitivity to many physicochemical processes (Eskandari and Sadeghi, 2024). The other most common phases in granitoids, feldspar and quartz, however, have little contrast in X-ray absorption spectrum and cannot therefore be readily distinguished in 2D-3D images (Higgins, 2017).
In this work, we present CSD textural analysis methodology from eight different geochronological plutonic bodies from the cordilleran belt of southern Mexico. This CSD proxy was combined with geochemical and thermobarometric data to discuss the relationship between the crystallization processes and their emplacement conditions.
3. Plutonic assembly in southern Mexico: eight case studies of textural development in granitoid rocks
Belonging to the North American Cordillera, the western Mexico Mesozoic-Cenozoic geologic evidence shows arc magmatism episodes in diverse settings, such as crustal shortening and accretion, subduction erosion, tectonic extension, as well as switching from convergent to transform and divergent plate boundaries. Also, the existence of a long-lived magmatic arc, that vanished diachronically during Paleogene-early Miocene time, decreasing in age to the southeast, is preserved at the Sierra Madre del Sur (SMS; Morán-Zenteno et al., 2018 and references herein). The plutonic outcropped rocks are mainly composed of granitoid rocks s.l., whose ages range from Jurassic to Miocene, emplaced into low-grade metamorphic and volcano-sedimentary rocks from Triassic-Cretaceous age of the Guerrero terrane (Morán-Zenteno et al., 1999; Ortega-Gutiérrez et al., 2014; Schaaf et al., 1995; Centeno-García et al., 2008; Figure 2).
Two large groups of granitoid rocks outcrop along the Pacific margin in the Jalisco-Guerrero region as a part of the Zihuatanejo subterrane (Centeno-García et al., 2008): The Manzanillo-Jilotlán-Aquila Batholitic Complex (MJABC) is formed mainly by granite, granodiorite and tonalite felsic members, although also present are distinctive mafic members of gabbro, diorite, and quartz diorite compositions. Age of granitoids lies between 70 and 53 Ma, decreasing to the southeast, while also 115 and 84 Ma ages are reported in gabbroic rocks (Centeno- García et al., 2008; Gómez-Rivera, 2019; Villanueva-Lascuráin et al., 2016).
The Lázaro Cárdenas-Zihuatanejo-Tecpan, the second group: La Mira, Arteaga, Montecillos and Zihuatanejo is constituted mainly by granitoid and pegmatitic rocks, with ages along the Eocene between 48 and 36 Ma (Schaaf et al., 1995; Suazo- Cruz, 2020 and references therein).
This second group of Eocene granitoids is widespread towards the inland continent and is exposed sporadically associated even with its Eocene volcanic cover (Centeno-García et al., 2008; Martini et al., 2009). Montecillos, San Jerónimo, Guayameo, La Huacana and Matanguarán are Eocene granitoid localities that show good correlation and are exposed and dislocated by long tectonic extension structures. Matanguarán is the northernmost granitoid site and is located on the boundaries and overlain by volcanic sequences of the Transmexican volcanic belt (Corona-Chávez, 1999).
In another context, Jurassic plutons have also been reported in the San Diego Curucupatzeo and Tumbiscatío region (Guevara-Alday, 2020; Resendiz-Zarco, 2024), and as young as Miocene in the Cuitzeo region (Hernández-Bernal et al., 2021), which, although belonging to diachronic magmatic arcs, all of them have calc-alkaline signatures. Based on compiled and new petrological, whole rock and chronological data (Figure 2 and Table 1) from samples of the San Diego Jurassic pluton, Arteaga, Montecillos, San Jerónimo, La Huacana and Matanguarán Eocene intrusives and Cuitzeo Miocene xenolith, we carried out calculations and CSD patterns to integrate a framework for emplacement constraints.
4.Methods
4.1. MAJOR AND TRACE GEOCHEMISTRY AND ZIRCON ISOTOPIC DATING
Around 200 g of fresh pulverized sample material of each granitic sample were used for geochemical analyses. Major elements were determined at the Laboratorio Nacional de Geoquímica y Mineralogía (LANGEM at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México-UNAM) by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) using a Siemens SRS-3000 instrument. Trace element abundances were acquired using a Thermo Series XII instrument of the Laboratorio de Estudios Isotópicos (LEI), by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) at the Instituto de Geociencias (IGC-UNAM). The zircon crystals obtained from a granulated portion were analyzed employing a Resonetics M050 excimer laser coupled with a Thermo Xseries quadrupole ICP-MS, at the laser ablation system of the Laboratorio de Estudios Isotópicos (LEI-IGC-UNAM).
4.2. PRESSURE AND TEMPERATURE CONDITIONS
Quantitative electron-microprobe analyses were done in wavelength-dispersion mode with a JEOL JXA-8200 electron microprobe, at the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Milan (ESD-MI).
Pressure calculation was carried out using the Al-in-hornblende barometry formulation (Mutch et al., 2016) using amphibole measurements.
The temperature calculation was performed from pressure-dependent expressions in plagioclase- amphibole pairs (Anderson et al., 2008). Ti-in zircon temperature was calculated with the Ferry and Watson (2007) equation.
4.3. CRYSTAL SIZE DISTRIBUTION PLOTS
Cylinders one inch tall by one inch in diameter of the chosen plutonic bodies’ samples were used. They were analyzed by x-rays tomography technique in LUMIR (University Lab of X-Rays Micro-tomography at Geosciences Institute, UNAM), based on the attenuation of beams that penetrate the sample (Jerram and Higgins, 2007). The geometry of the crystal population was obtained from a set of X-ray tomography images of the samples using ImageJ public domain software. From bidimensional data (2D) returned by the ImageJ software, the number of crystals per mm3 as a function of size was valued using the stereological procedure of CSD Corrections 1.61 ver. software (available at http://www.uqac.ca/mhiggins/csdcorrections.html).
The input parameters include a massive fabric and the average 3-D aspect ratio (AR) of the plagioclase crystals 1:2:5 (S, I, L), values in the range of those reported by (Babazadeh et al., 2021; Garrido et al., 2001; Holness et al., 2020) for phaneritic rocks.
5. Results
5.1. MAJOR AND TRACE GEOCHEMISTRY AND ZIRCON ISOTOPIC DATING
The abundance of rock-forming minerals and major element diagrams indicate diorite, monzonite, granodiorite and granite composition (Figure 3a and Table 1). All of them show a calc-alkaline signature. The Shand’s Index of the Cenozoic plutons is metaluminous, whereas the Jurassic body is clearly peraluminous (Figure 3b). The chondrite normalized REE plot in Figure 3c shows a typical signature of magmatic arc, LREE enriched relative to flat HREE with a negative Eu anomaly suggesting a previous removal of plagioclases in parental magma.
The isotopic U-Pb dating on zircon crystals gives new ages for six plutons. The result ranges from 164.7 to 20.6 Ma. The new calculated ages are shown in Figure 4. Note the almost complete absence of inherited zircons.
5.2. PRESSURE AND TEMPERATURE CONDITIONS
The calculated pressure and temperature obtained from Mg-hornblende amphiboles and plagioclases pairs range from 1.0 to 2.8 kbar and 684 to 818 °C, indicating shallow intrusion conditions (Figure 5a and Table 2). Also, the saturation temperature recorded in zircons was obtained, always being higher than those obtained with amph-plg pairs (Figure 5b and Table 2). Zircon saturation thermometry, between 693 and 921 °C, provides a means of estimating magma temperatures. The > 800 °C zircon temperatures are considered “hot” inheritance-poor granitoids (Miller et al., 2003), in agreement with the Weighted Mean age plots (Figure 4) that indicate almost absence of inherited zircon crystals.
5.3. CRYSTAL SIZE DISTRIBUTION PLOTS
Data related to the natural logarithm of crystal population density were plotted versus crystal length (Figure 6 and Table 3). The CSD plots for different pluton samples exhibit curved patterns. The crystal population logdensity of described granitic rocks ranges from +8 to -5.
We constrain the curved CSD patterns to be represented by two linear segments as other authors do (Bell et al., 2023; Hamzah et al., 2018; Marsh, 1998); one segment chosen for small crystals < 0.5 mm, and another segment for large crystals size 0.5 mm. Thereafter, we used both segments to calculate the approximate storage times necessary to accomplish the observed crystal growth.
From these two segments and linear regression adjusted, it can be observed that crystals with higher nucleation rates produce fine grain size and steeper CSD slopes. Coarser grain size, on the other hand, reflects low nucleation density and implies a gentler CSD slope (Figure 6).
Table 3 contains the path, slope, and intercept values calculated with Grapher® software. The residence time τ calculated with Equation 3 considers growth rate G equal to 10-10 mms-1 (Marsh, 1988). The calculated average residence time from CSD slopes of plagioclase crystals is 17 to 67 years for small sizes, < 0.5 mm, and 86 to 187 years for > 0.5 mm (Table 3).
6. Discussions and conclusions
6.1. CRYSTAL SIZE DISTRIBUTION PLOTS AND MIXING PROCESSES
As mentioned earlier, a linear slope on a CSD diagram indicates simple cooling of magma, but if the diagram exhibits hump-shaped, kinks or changes of slope, added processes must have been placed over upon the cooling, such as mixing of magmas or coarsening of individual mineral grains (Higgins, 2006). CSD diagrams of the described plutons (Figure 6 and Table 3) do not display straight lines. The upward concave lines suggest the magma mixing in a magma chamber prior to or during ascent and emplacement (see Figure 1e). The flexure or narrow humps on smaller crystal sizes in Arteaga and San Jerónimo CSD curves agree with the presence of Mafic Microgranular Enclaves (MMEs) in macro and microscopic scales, respectively (Figures 7b and 8c).
The presence of the MMEs probably is related to a hotter mafic magma that cools rapidly when it meets colder felsic host magma, producing a short- lived large nucleation stage (humped curve). In none of the described cases, straight or nearly straight CSD curves suggest that thermal equilibrium was achieved during the interaction of mafic and felsic magma. Instead, the measurements produced curved CSD lines (Figures 6, 7 and 8 and Table 3), pointing to magma mixing/mingling as a ubiquitous process.
6.2. CRYSTAL SIZE DISTRIBUTION PLOTS AND RESIDENCE TIME
In this study, the calculated residence time in plagioclase crystals, from 85 to 187 years, particularly those for crystals > 0.5 mm, agree with values of residence time obtained in plutonic mafic and felsic bodies, phenocrysts, and central areas of dikes tens of meters thick that ranges from 117 to 375 years (Ashok et al., 2022; Babazadeh et al., 2019, 2021; Deb and Bhattacharyya, 2018; Ngonge et al., 2013; Nugroho et al., 2019). Furthermore, the residence times obtained in this work, of the order of 102, are comparable to the duration of diffusion and the mixing and assimilation times of magma for intermediate to silicic systems, of the order of 101-102 (Cooper, 2019; Costa, 2021).
According to Figure 1c, the higher slope of the smaller plagioclase population compared to the larger size population suggests that the smaller ones underwent higher undercooling in shallower crustal regions and shorter residence times.
6.3. RESIDENCE TIME VERSUS P-T
It seems that there is no direct relationship between barometric values versus residence times. The calculated residence time of the larger plagioclase crystals (> 0.5 mm), from 85 to 187 years, may reflect a stationary crystallization depth of plagioclases (see Cashman, 2020).
Figure 9a shows the behavior of residence time τ versus temperature, calculated with the amph-plg pair or with the saturation Zr system. Two trends are observed; the first corresponds to the Matanguarán, Montecillos, Arteaga and Cuitzeo plutons, which, in both thermometers, suggests that the bodies with lower temperatures stagnate for longer times and vice versa, the crystals of the magmas with higher temperatures will be removed in less time. The similarity of the values of the amphibole and zircon thermometers in the Cuitzeo, Arteaga and Montecillos plutons and the empirical relationship with the residence time suggest that the cooling trajectory did not experience great thermal contrasts, despite the possible mixing of magmas.
Although the Matanguarán body is related to this trend of higher temperature versus shorter residence time, it is worth to note a relative discrepancy between the temperature values obtained by Ti-in zircon (Ferry and Watson, 2007) and plagioclase-hornblende thermometer (Anderson et al., 2008). In addition, this sample presents a textural complexity that apparently suggests mixing magma and latest hydrothermal alteration, which makes difficult a simple CSD interpretation.
On the other hand, the second complex trend corresponds to the data of both thermometers obtained in the Cayaco and Cuinique bodies in the La Huacana area. They also follow this inverse trend between residence time and temperature, but with a shift towards longer residence times. This suggests that both plutons emplaced shallowly as a “hot” magma and that the cooling pattern of the older Cuinique body (40 Ma) was modified by the intrusion of the younger Cayaco body (36 Ma) at the same cortical level (1.8-1.2 kbar).
Figure 9b suggests that the residence time is also inversely proportional to the silica content, but all the values obtained lie in the same time order, 101 to 102, so it is difficult to compare with the temporality of processes reported by Costa (2021).
6.4. MAGMA PROCESSES IN SW MÉXICO
The studied plutons are representative of diachronic magmatic arc suites, from Jurassic to Neogene periods, based on their mineralogical content, magmatic series classification and REE paths. The magmatic arc tectonic setting has been imposed in the western region of México since Mesozoic times to the present. The P-T conditions indicate a surface emplacement < 3 kbar. Additionally, the isotopic values of 87Sr/86Sri of Cretaceous and Paleogene plutons of the Sierra
Madre del Sur are variable, but most lie between = 0.704 and 0.705, and the epsilon Ndi generally has positive values (Morán-Zenteno et al., 2018). The isotopic values of the Miocene Cuitzeo body also lie within these ranges (Hernández-Bernal et al., 2021). Therefore, although in this work we do not discuss isotopic data, we consider that the emplacement occurred in a young crust for a long time and that given its predominantly felsic character, both the low density and low temperature contrasts favored the magmas to stagnate for periods of tens or hundreds of years. The plots of CSD for these granitoids show open systems behaviors with no constant conditions and no simple cooling stage.
These residence times are the first calculated for plutonic bodies in Mexico. The data obtained agree with those reported by other authors for igneous bodies, from 117 to 375 years, as mentioned above. According to the data analyzed in this work, the age of the rocks, the distance to the actual trench, and the depth have no imprint on the geometry of the CSD. No trace of pressure effect is evident in the residence times of the selected intrusive bodies, which record a very narrow pressure range. However, the temperature recorded by two different thermometers shows greater contrast, and thus, an inverse relationship is observed between the crystal stagnation time and the magma temperature. The likeness in the described bodies of the crystal growth times of plagioclases, mixing processes, plus shallow emplacement conditions indicate that the dynamics of the magmatic processes that occurred since the Jurassic in the southern margin of México are compatible with diachronous magmatic arcs, although the difference in crustal thickness and the direction and rates of magmatic migration are still issues that need to be investigated with other tools.
We argue that any pluton body requires to be analyzed in detail. Specially a careful 3D geometric and volumetric description of different generations of amphiboles-plagioclases assemblages is required, which may insight on different stages of crustal stagnation and ascent in the La Huacana (Cuinique and Cayaco) and Matanguarán regions, which present complex characteristics. It is convenient to determine whether other minerals, such as amphiboles or K-feldspars, retain the signature of mixture or magma mingling.
Future careful study of three-dimensional (3D) information of the textures during the solidification of these bodies will allow quantifying their role in the compositional differentiation of silicic magmas.
Contributions of authors
MH and PC contributed to conceptualization, the fieldwork and writing—original draft preparation. GS, ER and LR contributed to the methodology and carried out the fieldwork. SP contributed by obtaining and discussing accurate thermobarometric data.
Financing
MS and PC thank project PAPIIT-IN114521 for financial support.
Acknowledgements
The authors are also thankful to Lozano- SantaCruz and Ofelia Pérez-Arvizu for analytical support in XRF and ICPMS analyses, respectively. Isotopic measurements of U-Pb, were carried out by Carlos Ortega- Obregón. The XRmT runs were performed by Dante Arteaga-Martínez and the extraction of zircon crystals was supervised by Consuelo Macías-Romo. Comments from two reviewers helped to substantially improve the content of this paper.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declared that they have no competing interests.
Handling editor
Avto Gogichaishvili.
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