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Characterizing The Earliest Stages Of Partial Melting: A Study Of The Pyrometamorphic Aureole Of Miocene Mt. Perkins Pluton, Northwest Arizona, Mathew Beshears

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Partial melting is an important process in the evolution of continental crust. Due to its progressive nature, evidence of the early stages of partial melting is often overprinted by later, advanced stages of partial melting. Experimental work has provided a model for the early stages of partial melting, but is limited to timescales of hours to weeks. Pyrometamorphic environments within the contact aureole of mafic intrusions provide natural laboratories for the study of the earliest stages of partial melt production on geologic time scales of 102 collected along two traverses of the tilted pyrometamorphic aureole of the Mt. Perkins pluton …