Two-Billion-Year Granulites in the Late Precambrian Metamorphic Basement Along the Southern Peruvian Coast

Uranium-lead data indicate that the high-pressure granulitic and charnockitic nuclei within the medium-grade metamorphic complex of the Peruvian coastal area must be related to an orogenic event 2 x 10(9) years ago. As in western Africa and Brazil, this old granulitic basement is reworked by Late Precambrian orogeny. Its presence along the Peru-Chile Trench must be taken into account in interpreting the anomalously high strontium isotopic ratios of recent calc-alkaline volcanism.