The Kamuikotan Gorge area, west of Asahikawa, is mainly underlain by the high-pressure Kamuikotan metamorphic rocks. In this area, the Kamuikotan metamorphic rocks form a coherent metamorphic sequence, and are classified into two formations, i. e., the Ino-gawa Green-stone Formation and the Harushinai Pelite Formation. In the latter formation, serpentinites are not uncommon, and sometimes enclose blocks of amphibolites, jadeite+quartz-bearing rocks, and metabasites.
In the Kamuikotan metamorphic rocks, lawsonite, epidote, pumpellyite, glaucophane, actinolite, sodic pyroxene, and chlorite commonly occur. Various mineral assemblages are observed in metabasite, and their stability relations were analyzed by Schreinemakers' method. The petrogenetic grids derived from this method indicate that the Kamuikotan metamorphism of the Kamuikotan Gorge area mainly belongs to a high pressure subfacies of the lawsonite-albite facies, in which aragonite is stable, and that the Harushinai Pelite Formation was metamorphosed at the higher-pressure field than that of the Ino-gawa Greenstone Formation in narrow tempera-ture range. Its metamorphic grade is similar to that of the Horokanai area.
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