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Oxygen isotope analyses have been obtained for coexisting minerals in several blue-schist-facies metamorphic rocks from California, Oregon, and New Caledonia. Detailed isotopic studies were made on a continuous exposure of schist in Ward Creek, California, previously described by Coleman and Lee (1962). The oxygen isotope fractionations among coexisting minerals in a variety of rock types, including metasediments and metabasalts, are systematic and larger than those measured in pelitic schists metamorphosed at the grade of biotite zone or higher. Therefore, these Ward Creek rocks (termed Type III) must have formed at lower temperatures than have such pelitic schists. for significant isotopic equilibration and homogenization is observed in the Ward Creek sequence. Six different metasediments and metavolcanics collected within 25 m of one another show almost identical mineral δ;-values: quartz (15.8 to 16.3), aragonite (13.1 to 13.3), glaucophane (9.8 to 10.0), muscovite (10.9 to 11.3), lawsonite (9.3 to 9.5), and garnet (8.0 to 8.4), given as per mil enrichment in O18 relative to mean ocean water. These rocks seem to have reached equilibrium at about the same temperature in contact with abundant metamorphic pore fluids.
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Taylor et al. (1968) studied this question.