Source rocks for heavy minerals in lower part of Menilite Formation of Skole Nappe (Polish Flysch Carpathians), based on study of detrital garnet and tourmaline

Abstract

The study focused on the chemistry of detrital garnet and tourmaline from sediments of the Boryslav and Kliva Sandstone types in the Oligocene part of the Menilite Formation of the Skole Nappe (Western Outer Carpathians, Poland), with regard to provenance. Almandine and almandine-pyrope compositional varieties are the most common garnets, with minor almandine-pyrope-grossular garnet. Scarce garnet grains, with grossular and spessartine as the dominant end-members, are also present. The tourmaline belongs to the alkali tourmaline principal group and represents the schörl-dravite series. The detrital garnet and tourmaline display strong, compositional similarities to minerals, occurring in igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Bohemian Massif, as well as to detrital grains, deposited within the internal basins of the massif. This suggests that the primary rocks for the garnet and tourmaline may be crystalline complexes of the Bohemian Massif. However, other uplifted areas, similar to the complexes of the Bohemian Massif, cannot be ruled out. Such hypothetical areas could be located in the northern foreland of the Carpathian basins. Euhedral tourmaline and other minerals, occurring in the heavy- mineral assemblages studied, most probably were derived from eroded and presently not exposed, crystalline complexes, originally situated in the Skole Basin foreland or within the basin.