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Most garnets in a small volume of the pelitic Sanbagawa schists nucleated simultaneously, grew, and then ceased with their growth, maintaining near-equilibrium with coexisting minerals such as chlorite and biotite during the prograde metamorphism. Chemical trends of zoned garnets systematically shift from the pyrope-poor to pyrope-rich portions in a ternary MnFeMg system in order of ascending metamorphic grade. A ternary (MnFeMg) model system suggests that the higher-grade garnets started to grow at lower pressures and higher temperatures than the lower-grade ones during prograde metamorphism. It follows that high-grade metamorphism took place at lower pressures in the garnet to oligoclase-biotite zones of the Sanbagawa metamorphic terrain in central Shikoku.

During the prograde metamorphism of the Sanbagawa metamorphic terrain in central Shikoku, garnet has grown in the pelitic schists whilst maintaining surface equilibrium with coexisting minerals such as chlorite and epidote, etc. In the quartz-albite layer, it has grown euhedrally. In the micaceous layer, its crystal morphology varies according to the different minerals in contact and their different orientations. Garnet enclosed in or sandwiched between micas is always ellipsoidal, extended parallel to the basal planes of the micas. However, when the edge of a garnet has intruded at an acute angle into the micas, euhedral garnet has grown. It is concluded that the growth of garnet at the interface with micas ceased when the {110} surface of garnet came into contact with the basal plane of the micas in the tectonic c -axis direction. Other models, such as chloritization-resorption, pressure-solution, and mechanical-erosion or grinding, do not adequately explain the origin of the flattened garnet. During retrograde metamorphism, chloritization and resorption of garnets took place in the matrix, resulting in the rough and irregular surface of garnet. Garnets included in albite porphyroblasts have been largely unaffected by the retrograde metamorphism.