The relationship between Late Devonian mafic intrusions and peraluminous granitoid generation in the Meguma Lithotectonic Zone, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Current theories for the generation of voluminous granitoid intrusions state that mafic magmas can provide a localized, external source of heat for crustal melting. Regardless of their age or tectonic setting, many alkaline, metaluminous, and peraluminous granitoid bodies occur with contemporaneous satellite mafic intrusions and show spatial relationships with mafic magmas in the form of synplutonic mafic bodies and mafic igneous enclaves. Physical juxtaposition of the intruded mafic magmas and resulting anatectic granitoid melts also allows for the transfer of chemical components to produce hybridized lithologies by mechanical interaction and/or chemical diffusion. In this multidisciplinary study, identification of all these established criteria for mafic-granitoid genetic relationships, in combination with one-dimensional thermal models of mafic intraplating, allows the assessment of a role for intruded mafic magma as a source of chemical components and, ultimately, heat in a suite of granitoid rocks.