High-grade rocks exposed at Earth’s surface represent a crucial archive of the dynamic changes that have shaped the lithosphere. Despite continuous advances, significant knowledge gaps that prevent the development of fully integrated models of tectonic and lithospheric evolution still exist. In the face of this grand challenge, trace elements and isotopes have proven invaluable tools to access intricate records of deep Earth processes, particularly when investigated in robust accessory and major minerals. With ongoing improvements in the spatial resolution, precision and accuracy of geochemical and geochronological analyses, such evidence has become indispensable to the modern petrologist. Coupled petrological and temporal frameworks are essential inputs into models that link grain-scale processes to large-scale geodynamics, and continue to improve our understanding of complex tectonometamorphic histories from the Hadean to the present.

This session will explore novel applications of geochemical and/or geochronological data to unravel petrological and deformational records of the crust and mantle, at scales ranging from individual rock samples to entire terranes. We invite contributions that highlight new developments in trace element or isotope (micro-)analysis, geo- and thermochronology, micro-structural analysis, and the characterisation of fluid-rock systems. Studies of natural samples, models, analytical developments and experimental data are welcomed, particularly those that integrate such approaches.

Invited speakers:

Lukas Baumgartner (University of Lausanne)
“Tracking mineral growth and fluid-rock interaction in metamorphic and igneous environments with high-resolution stable isotope analysis”

Andy Smye (Penn State)
“Competing Pb Transport Mechanisms in U-Pb Thermochronometers”

Nadia Malaspina (University of Milano-Bicocca)
"An integrated petrological and geochemical approach to unravel contrasting P-T-t paths during subduction and exhumation of the Adula Nappe (Central Alps)"