Raman data of quartz inclusions in garnet from the Tianshan HP metamorphic belt, China

Raman data of quartz inclusions in garnet from a blueschist metavolcaniclastic rock from the Chinese Tianshan high-pressure metamorphic belt, southwestern Tianshan. The studied sample is a garnet-glaucophane-albite schist and is characterized by idioblastic garnet. Raman spectra were obtained on quartz inclusions in garnet. Measurements were performed with a Horiba ISA Dilor Labram confocal Raman spectrometer using the 532nm line of a Nd:YAG Laser at the Freie Universität Berlin. To avoid thermal changes, the energy on the sample surface was reduced to 2–3mW, by introducing a neutral density (ND) filter. The resulting spectral resolution between 1100 and 1800cm^-1 was around 4.5cm^-1. Using the 100x objective of an Olympus BX40 microscope and a confocal hole of 400µm, the spatial resolution of each measurement was around 1µm. The duration for data acquisition for each spot was 5–45 s. A gem-quality single quartz crystal was taken as a standard for stress free conditions and measured approximately every 2 hours. Further details and discussion can be found in Schwarzenbach, Xin et al. (under review), On exhumation velocities of high-pressure units based on insights from chemical zoning in garnet (Tianshan, NW China), submitted to Earth and Planetary Science Letters.