We document experiments on a natural metapelite in the range 650–775°C, 6–14 kbar, 10 wt % of added water, and 700–850°C, 4–10 kbar, no added water. Staurolite systematically formed in the fluid-present melting experiments above 675°C, but formed only sporadically in the fluid-absent melting experiments. The analysis of textures, phase assemblages, and variation of phase composition and Fe–Mg partitioning with P and T suggests that supersolidus staurolite formed at (near-) equilibrium during fluid-present melting reactions. The experimental results are used to work out the phase relations in the system K₂O–Na₂O–FeO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂–H₂O appropriate for initial melting of metapelites at the upper amphibolite facies. The P–T grid developed predicts the existence of a stable P–T field for supersolidus staurolite that should be encountered by aluminous Fe-rich metapelites during fluid-present melting at relatively low temperature and intermediate pressures (675–700°C, 6–10 kbar for XH₂O = 1, in the KNFMASH system), but not during fluid-absent melting. The implications of these findings for the scarcity of staurolite in migmatites are discussed.

The Variscan Orogen in Iberia and the Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco contains a set of ophiolites formed between Neoproterozoic and Devonian times, during the complex evolution of the NW African–Iberian margin of Gondwana. During this time interval, the margin evolved from an active margin ( c. 750–500 Ma: the Reguibat–Avalonian–Cadomian arc) to the final collision with Laurussia in Devonian times to form Pangaea. In this context, one of the oldest recognized ophiolites is the Bou Azzer Ophiolite from the Anti-Atlas Mountains, dated at c. 697 Ma and containing two types of mafic rocks, the youngest of which has a boninitic composition. To the north, in the SW Iberian Massif, the Calzadilla Ophiolite contains mafic rocks also of boninitic composition dated at c. 598 Ma. Farther north, in the NW Iberian Massif, the Vila de Cruces Ophiolite is formed by a thick sequence of mafic rocks with an arc tholeiitic composition and minor alternations of tonalitic orthogneisses dated at c. 497 Ma. In the same region, the Bazar Ophiolite has a similar age of c. 495 Ma. Also in NW Iberia, there is a group of ophiolites with varied lithologies and dominant mafic rocks with arc tholeiitic composition (Careón, Purrido and Moeche ophiolites) dated at c. 395 Ma. The composition of all these peri-Gondwanan ophiolites is of supra-subduction zone type, showing no evidence of preserved mid-ocean ridge basalt type oceanic lithosphere. Consequently, these ophiolites were generated in the peri-Gondwanan realm during the opening of forearc or back-arc basins. Forearc oceanic lithosphere was promptly obducted or accreted to the volcanic arc, but the oceanic or transitional lithosphere generated in back-arc settings was preserved until the assembly of Pangaea. Based on the ages of the described ophiolites, the peri-Gondwanan realm has been a domain where the generation of oceanic or transitional lithosphere seems to have occurred at intervals of c. 100 myr. These regularly spaced time intervals may indicate cyclic events of mantle upwelling in the peri-Gondwanan mid-ocean ridges, with associated higher subduction rates at the peri-Gondwanan trenches and concomitant higher rates of partial melting in the mantle wedges involved. The origin of the apparent cyclicity for mantle upwelling in the peri-Gondwanan ocean ridges is unclear, but it could have possibly been related to episodic deep mantle convection. Cycles of more active deep mantle convection can explain episodic mantle upwelling, the transition from low- to fast-spreading type mid-ocean ridges and, finally, the dynamic context for the episodic generation of new supra-subduction zone type oceanic peri-Gondwanan lithosphere.