CHAPTER 7 Metamorphism: A Process of Change

Learning Objectives

1. Students should know that metamorphic rocks have been altered in the solid state
due to environmental changes (typically heat and/or stress).
2. Students should be familiar with the environments of metamorphic rock
formation: dynamothermal (regional), thermal (contact), dynamic (fault zone/shear
zone), burial, hydrothermal, and shock. In particular, they should understand why some
environments yield both foliated and nonfoliated rocks, whereas others produce only
nonfoliated rocks.
3. Metamorphism is induced by heat, pressure, differential stress, and chemical
interaction. Heat can be added by burial depth or contact with hot groundwater. Pressure
is added with depth. Differential stress arises at fault zones and over broad regions during
mountain building.
4. Metamorphic effects include recrystallization, phase changes, metamorphic
reactions (neocrystallization), pressure solution, and plastic deformation. Foliation involves
the development of parallel alignment of mineral grains of preferred mineral associations
(compositional banding).
5. Students should be familiar with the common pair of nonfoliated metamorphic
rocks (quartzite, marble) and the slate-phyllite-schist-gneiss series of foliated rocks.
Students should also know the nature of foliation present in each member of the series.
6. Protoliths affected by metamorphism can be of any type (igneous, sedimentary, or
metamorphic). Alteration of metamorphics to produce higher-grade rocks is termed
prograde metamorphism; the reverse process is termed retrograde metamorphism.

Summary from the Text

Metamorphism refers to changes in a rock that result in the formation of a

metamorphic mineral assemblage, and/or metamorphic texture, in response to change in
temperature
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and/or pressure, to the application of differential stress, or to interaction with

hydrothermal fluids (hot-water solutions).
Metamorphism involves recrystallization, phase changes, metamorphic reactions
(neocrystallization), pressure solution, and/or plastic deformation. If hydrothermal
fluids bring in or remove elements, we say that metasomatism has occurred.
Metamorphic foliation can be defined either by preferred mineral orientation (aligned
inequant crystals) or by compositional banding. Preferred mineral orientation develops
where differential stress causes the compression and shearing of a rock so that its inequant
grains align parallel with each other.
Geologists separate metamorphic rocks into two classes, foliated rocks and
nonfoliated rocks.
The class of foliated rocks includes slate, phyllite, schist, and gneiss. The class of
nonfoliated rocks includes hornfels, quartzite, and marble. Migmatite is a mixture of
igneous and metamorphic rock.
Rocks formed under relatively low temperatures are known as low-grade rocks,
whereas those formed under high temperatures are known as high-grade rocks.
Intermediate-grade rocks develop between these two extremes. Different metamorphic
mineral assemblages
form at different grades.
Geologists track the distribution of different grades of rock by looking for index
minerals. Isograds indicate the location at which index minerals first appear. A
metamorphic zone is the region between two isograds.
A metamorphic facies is a group of metamorphic mineral assemblages that
develop under a specified range of temperature and pressure conditions.
Thermal (contact) metamorphism occurs in an aureole surrounding an
igneous intrusion. Burial metamorphism occurs at depth in a sedimentary basin.
Dynamically metamorphosed rocks form along faults. Dynamothermal
(regional) metamorphism results when rocks undergo heating and shearing
during mountain
building. Hydrothermal metamorphism can take place due to the circulation of hot water
in oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges. Shock metamorphism happens during the impact of
a meteorite.
We find belts of metamorphic rocks in mountain ranges. Blueschist forms in
accretionary prisms. Shields expose broad areas of Precambrian metamorphic
rocks.

Answers to Review Questions

1. How are metamorphic rocks different from igneous and sedimentary rocks?
ANS: Metamorphic rocks are the result of heat and stress causing an alteration
of texture, mineralogy, or both, within a preexisting rock, without the rock having
undergone melting. Many metamorphic (but no igneous or sedimentary) rocks
possess foliation.

2. What two features characterize most metamorphic rocks?

ANS: Metamorphic mineral assemblages (minerals uniquely produced under
the temperature and pressure regimes of metamorphism) and metamorphic
texture (grain arrangement, often involving foliation: a preferred alignment of
platy grains
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or alternating light and dark mineral bands) are characteristic of most

metamorphic rocks.

3. What phenomena cause metamorphism?

ANS: Mountain building, plutonism, volcanism, faulting, meteoric impact,
mantle convection, and water-rock interactions all lead to metamorphism.

4. What is metamorphic foliation, and how does it form?

ANS: Foliation is the presence of parallel planar surfaces or layers in
metamorphic rock. Under sufficiently differential stress, platy or elongate grains are
broken down and regrown in a preferred orientation perpendicular to maximum
compressive stress.

5. How does slate differ from phyllite? How does phyllite differ from schist? How
does schist differ from gneiss?
ANS: Slate and its characteristic slaty cleavage arise from the preferred orientation of
clay minerals resulting from the relatively low-temperature and low-pressure metamorphism
of a body of shale. Phyllite arises when significantly higher temperatures and pressures
cause clay grains within slate to be recrystallized to form mica grains, which retain a
preferred orientation. Unlike slate, which is rather dull, mica gives phyllite a silky luster.
Schist differs from phyllite in that, as a result of greater heat and pressure, its mica grains
are large, visible discrete plates, unlike the smooth sheen of tiny mica grains within phyllite.
Gneiss is compositionally banded, with alternating bands or swirls of light- and dark-
colored minerals, including additional minerals besides mica (quartz, feldspar, amphibole).

6. Why are hornfels nonfoliated?

ANS: Hornfels form through contact metamorphism, without the application
of differential stress.

7. What is a metamorphic grade, and how can it be determined? How does grade
differ from facies?
ANS: A metamorphic grade refers to a series of temperature and (to a lesser extent)
pressure regimes under which metamorphism takes place. For example, high-grade
metamorphism occurs under greater temperatures (and pressures) than does low-grade
metamorphism. Metamorphic grade is usually assessed on the basis of the mineral
assemblage making up the metamorphic rock, as well as its foliation and other textural
clues (such as grain size). Facies is a more precise term used for a restricted range of
temperatures and pressures defined by the presence of key minerals.

8. Describe the geologic settings where thermal, dynamic, and

dynamothermal metamorphism take place.
ANS: Thermal metamorphism takes place in a zone of country rock surrounding a
pluton, where the country rock’s mineral assemblage becomes recrystallized. Dynamic
metamorphism occurs in fault zones, where shearing force recrystallizes minerals at depth.
Dynamothermal metamorphism occurs within the cores of mountain ranges, induced by
increased heat and pressure associated with crustal thickening and the shear that arises in
the development of fold-and-thrust belts.
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9. Why does metamorphism happen at the site of meteor impacts and along mid-
ocean ridges?
ANS: At a meteor impact site, pressure on minerals rises sharply at the time of
impact, producing conditions favorable for new minerals that would not otherwise be
present.
Mid-ocean ridge settings provide ample opportunity for relatively cool water to interact
with hot, recently formed rock.

10. How does plate tectonics explain the peculiar combination of low-temperature but
high- pressure minerals found in a blueschist?
ANS: Blueschists form at the base of thick accretionary prisms, sediments scraped
off of the downgoing slab at subduction zones. Because the subducting slab is relatively
cool, it adds little heat to the prism, allowing for the relatively high pressures but low
temperatures in which the blueschist mineral assemblage is stable.

11. Where would you go if you wanted to find exposed metamorphic rocks, and
how would such rocks have returned to the surface of Earth after being at depth in
the crust?
ANS: You would go look for the site of an ancient, greatly eroded mountain range,
such as the modern Appalachians. The bases of mountain ranges produce large volumes of
metamorphic rock. As overlying layers of sediment and rock are weathered and eroded
away, isostatic pressure causes the basement to be buoyed upward until these rocks are
finally exposed at the surface.

On Further Thought

12. Do you think that you would be likely to find a broad region (hundreds of km across
and hundreds of km long) in which the outcrop consists of high-grade hornfels? Why or
why not? (Hint: Think about the causes of metamorphism and the conditions under which a
hornfels forms.)
ANS: This scenario is unlikely; hornfels typically forms through thermal (contact)
metamorphism, as an altered rind (aureole) of former shale that surrounded a cooling
intrusion. These aureoles are never hundreds of km wide. In the broader-scale regional
(dynamothermal) setting, shale would be altered to form a variety of foliated rocks, such
as slate, phyllite, schist, and gneiss.

13. Would we likely find broad regions of gneiss and schist on the Moon? Why or
why not?
ANS: No, these dynamothermally altered rocks are ultimately products of horizontal
stresses caused by plate tectonics, which the Moon lacks. Lunar geology could
accommodate burial or even contact metamorphism but not dynamothermal metamorphism.

14. Why don’t builders use gneiss to make roofing shingles?

ANS: Unlike slate, gneiss contains abundant blocky, equant quartz, and feldspar
crystals. Further, foliation planes in gneiss are often wrinkled or discontinuous. Gneiss
does not split neatly into sheets the way slate does.
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15. The geothermal gradient of Mars is 8°C/km, and the crust of Mars is 30 km thick. Do
high-grade metamorphic rocks form in this crust?
ANS: No, temperatures at the base of the crust would be less than 240°C.

16. Could you find a layer of metamorphic rock sandwiched between layers of sedimentary
rock in a sedimentary basin? Why or why not?
ANS: You could find this potentially; one way this could happen is through contact
metamorphism around a sill that intruded between sedimentary strata.