Low stress deformation of garnet by incongruent dissolution precipitation creep

Microstructures indicating incongruent dissolution precipitation creep of garnet in eclogite-facies graphitic micaschist (Tauern window, Eastern Alps) are investigated. Garnet dissolution is observed where garnet poikiloblasts grown at eclogite facies metamorphism approached each other as a consequence of progressive deformation during exhumation, with estimated P-T-conditions between 570 °C, 1.7 GPa and 470 °C, 0.9 GPa. The poikiloblasts are separated by a dissolution seam and flanked by strain shadows filled with quartz, white mica, and chlorite; there is no evidence for crystal plastic deformation of garnet. Two cases are investigated: (A) stylolitic contact zone, (B) smooth contact zone. In both cases, internal fabrics of the poikiloblasts and concentric chemical zoning are truncated. Material previously forming inclusions in the garnet poikiloblasts is now passively enriched in a dissolution seam, the original microstructure of fine-grained mica–graphite aggregates remaining preserved. Though microstructures suggest that garnet dissolution was driven by local stress concentration, the level of differential stress remained too low for plastic deformation of the fine-grained white mica-graphite aggregates set free from the stress supporting garnet. Incongruent dissolution precipitation creep appears to be a particularly effective deformation mechanism at low stress in a subduction channel.