minerals Article REE Tetrad Effect and Sr-Nd Isotope Systematics of A-Type Pirrit Hills Granite from West Antarctica Hyo Min Lee 1, Seung-Gu Lee 2,* , Hyeoncheol Kim 2, Jong Ik Lee 3 and Mi Jung Lee 3 1 Geoscience Platform Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, 124 Gwahak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34132, Korea;
[email protected] 2 Geology Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, 124 Gwahak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34132, Korea;
[email protected] 3 Division of Polar Earth-System Sciences, Korea Polar Research Institute, 26 Songdomirae-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 21990, Korea;
[email protected] (J.I.L.);
[email protected] (M.J.L.) * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +82-42-868-3376 Abstract: The Pirrit Hills are located in the Ellsworth–Whitmore Mountains of West Antarctica. The Pirrit Hills granite exhibits significant negative Eu anomalies (Eu/Eu* = 0.01~0.25) and a REE tetrad effect indicating intensive magmatic differentiation. Whole-rock Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd geochronologic analysis of the Pirrit Hills granite gave respective ages of 172.8 ± 2.4 Ma with initial 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7065 ± 0.0087 Ma and 169 ± 12 Ma with initial 144Nd/143Nd = 0.512207 ± 0.000017. The isotopic ratio data indicate that the Pirrit Hills granite formed by the remelting of Mesoproterozoic mantle- derived crustal materials. Both chondrite-normalized REE patterns and Sr-Nd isotopic data indicate that the Pirrit Hills granite has geochemical features of chondrite-normalized REE patterns indicating that REE tetrad effects and negative Eu anomalies in the highly fractionated granites were produced Citation: Lee, H.M.; Lee, S.-G.; Kim, from magmatic differentiation under the magmatic-hydrothermal transition system.