Melt inclusions in migmatites and granulites.

Important advances have been made during the last 15 years in the study of melt inclusions in minerals from migmatites and granulites. Pioneer work on high temperature metapelitic anatectic enclaves in peraluminous dacites from SE Spain has shown that droplets of granitic melt can be trapped by minerals growing during incongruent melting reactions, and that the composition of such trapped melts can be representative of that of the bulk melt in the system during the anatexis of the rock. Therefore melt inclusions may represent samples of embryionic anatectic granite. In most cases, these melt inclusions define microstructures that are typical of primary entrapment, and show little or no evidence of melt crystallization upon cooling. Rather, the melt solidified to glass due to very fast cooling associated with the submarine extrusion of the dacites. Hence inclusions can readily be analyzed for major and trace elements by conventional methods such as the electron microprobe or by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasmamass spectrometry.