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Calcite-dolomite geothermometry for iron-bearing carbonates

The Glockner area of the Tauern Window, Austria

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Abstract

The effect of the addition of iron on the calcite-dolomite solvus in the system CaCO3-MgCO3 is predicted from an approximate thermodynamic description of the systems CaCO3-MgCO3 and CaCO3-FeCO3. Coexisting calcites and dolomites in 15 samples from the Glockner area of the Tauern Window have been analysed to estimate metamorphic temperatures. These range from about 410 °C at the top of the Matrei Zone, on the southern margin of the Tauern Window, to about 490 °C at Hochtor in the centre of the Glockner Depression, implying a geothermal gradient of about 25 °C/km during metamorphism.

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Bickle, M.J., Powell, R. Calcite-dolomite geothermometry for iron-bearing carbonates. Contrib. Mineral. Petrol. 59, 281–292 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00374557

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