Dyke emplacement under mixed loading conditions: Insights from the Dharwar Craton, India

Dykes are intrusive igneous bodies that play crucial role in the supply and ascent of magma to the Earth’s crust. Magma can intrude along pre-existing anisotropies such as fractures or foliations present within the host rock or it may create its own path by fracturing the host rock. In the latter scenario, when fractures are formed by the pressure exerted by the invading magma, a dyke’s outcrop shape and geometry are diagnostic of the conditions under which it evolved. Here, we report mafic dykes emplaced within the younger granites of Dharwar Craton, peninsular India. Outcrop attributes of these dykes are characteristic of emplacement under conditions of mixed mode loading. We discuss different discrete modes of fracture formation and their possible combinations to understand the generation and eventual emplacement of dykes under mixed mode loading. This leads to the development of a comprehensive sequence of progressive dyke evolution under mixed mode I-III loading and thereby distinguishing incremental orders of dyke horn formation. We further apply this knowledge along with collected field evidence on dyke body geometries to propose an evolutionary model of dyke formation and emplacement within the Chitradurga granite under varying regional stress fields of the Chitradurga Schist Belt, Western Dharwar Craton, India. We infer, that the dykes initiated as extensional fractures within an earlier NE-SW directed compressive stress field and were subsequently sheared sinistrally by the effect of the adjacent Chitradurga Shear Zone on account of a later E-W to ESE-WNW directed compression.