Interaction between metamorphic petrologists and geophysicists in the 1980s led to the realization that each metamorphic rock follows its own unique path through pressure- (depth-) temperature space during metamorphism and that these paths bear little or no resemblance to steady-state geotherms. The specific shape of a pressure-temperature-time (P-T-t) path depends on the tectonic setting in which the rock was metamorphosed, which in turn controls the relative rates at which burial or uplift and heating or cooling occur. For example, a rock that is uplifted rapidly from depth, perhaps in response to extensional faulting (that caused by the stretching of Earth’s crust), may transport heat with it to near-surface depths. Its P-T-t path would show a phase of nearly isothermal decompression (uplift at approximately constant temperature), reflecting the fact that uplift rates were more rapid than those of heat transfer. In contrast, if the same rock remained at depth for a long period of time and then experienced very slow uplift, its P-T-t path would show cooling during uplift or even a phase of isobaric (constant-pressure) cooling. Rocks belonging to medium-pressure facies series generally follow P-T-t paths that are clockwise loops on a pressure-temperature diagram, reflecting rapid burial during a collisional event followed by heating and relatively rapid uplift. In contrast, low-pressure facies series rocks may follow counterclockwise P-T-t paths in response to rapid heating of the crust due to magma intrusion prior to uplift. P-T-t paths followed by rocks of a high-pressure facies series are less predictable and depend strongly on the mechanism by which the rocks are transferred from the subducting slab to the overlying continental crust. In general, the mineral assemblage preserved in a metamorphic rock is frozen at the highest temperature experienced during metamorphism (see above Retrograde metamorphism), and thus the facies and facies series to which the rock would be assigned reflect only a single point on its P-T-t path.

One of the principal goals of much of the work that is done on metamorphic rocks is the reconstruction of the P-T-t paths followed by rocks presently exposed at Earth’s surface. Because these paths are so strongly linked to dynamic processes, their reconstruction provides a means by which tectonic processes operative in the geologic past may be understood. Owing to the continuous recrystallization of rocks that occurs during progressive metamorphism, much of the early record of metamorphic changes within a sample is eradicated by later events. It is, therefore, not possible to determine the entire P-T-t path followed by an individual sample, but often enough disequilibrium features are preserved to permit reconstruction of a few thousand bars and a couple of hundred degrees of the path; such a portion may represent anywhere from a few million to a hundred million years of Earth history, as revealed by geochronologic determinations involving different minerals or fabric generations in the sample. Techniques for determining the pressure-temperature history of a metamorphic rock include using compositions of coexisting minerals to calculate pressures and temperatures of equilibration (geobarometry and geothermometry, respectively), comparing the mineral assemblage to experimentally determined stability fields for the phases, utilizing mineral inclusions enclosed within porphyroblasts to constrain assemblages present in the early history of the sample, and making use of the densities of small inclusions of fluids trapped within the minerals to determine possible pressures and temperatures experienced at different stages in the burial and uplift history.

Hydrothermal metamorphism

Changes that occur in rocks near the surface where there is intense activity of hot water are categorized as hydrothermal metamorphism. Such areas include Yellowstone National Park in the northwestern United States, the Salton Sea in California, and Wairakei in New Zealand. It is now generally recognized that the circulating groundwaters that often become heated by their proximity to igneous materials produce the metamorphism. Migration of chemical elements, vein formation, and other kinds of mineral concentration may be extreme on account of the large volumes of water circulated.

Dynamic metamorphism

When directed pressure or stress is the dominant agent of metamorphism, it is termed dynamic; other terms are dislocation, kinematic, and mechanical metamorphism. Mineralogical changes occurring on a fault plane provide an obvious example. In some such cases, the action may simply be a grinding up of existing grains or realignment of minerals that have non-equant crystals. If the action is intense, friction may even lead to melting.

Contact metamorphism

Whenever silicate melts (magmas, from which igneous rocks crystallize within Earth) invade the crust at any level, they perturb the normal thermal regime and cause a heat increase in the vicinity. If a mass of basaltic liquid ascending from the upper mantle is trapped in the crust and crystallizes there, it will heat the surrounding area; the amount of heating and its duration will be a direct function of the mass and shape of the igneous material. Contact-metamorphic phenomena thus occur in the vicinity of hot igneous materials and at any depth. Under such circumstances, pressure and temperature are not simply correlated. Thermal gradients are often steep unless the igneous mass is extremely large. Contact aureoles—the surrounding zones of rock that become altered or metamorphosed—vary in thickness from several centimetres (around tabular bodies such as dikes and thin sills) to several kilometres (around large granitic intrusions). The contact metamorphic rocks of the aureole zone often lack any obvious schistosity or foliation.

The facies associated with contact metamorphism include the sanidinite, pyroxenite-hornfels, hornblende-hornfels, and albite-epidote-hornfels facies.