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Abstract Holsnøy, Norway, offers a world-class natural laboratory for studying the impact of fluid on subducting lower crust. Holsnøy is composed of dry, metastable lower crustal granulite that was infiltrated by fluids along shear zones and seismic fractures during subduction. The infiltration facilitated the localized growth of eclogite facies mineral assemblages along the fluid flow pathways. The duration of the eclogite facies metamorphism, however, remains uncertain. Previous garnet diffusion chronometry studies have estimated timescales ranging from hundreds of years to millions of years based on diffusional relaxation between metastable granulite facies garnet cores and eclogite facies garnet rims and fractures. The shorter timescales are inferred from extremely sharp Ca gradients across chemical contacts present in some garnets whereas the longer timescales are from wider Mg and Fe profiles present in all garnets. The different timescale estimates have led to divergent models for the region’s tectonometamorphic evolution. Here we show that the sharp Ca contacts can be explained by diffusion-induced compositional stress. As Ca is significantly larger than Mg and Fe, its movement strains the crystal lattice and generates stress that limits the relaxation of sharp chemical contacts. When compositional stress is accounted for, the sharp contacts yield timescales that are consistent with the wider Mg and Fe diffusion profiles. We determine that eclogite facies conditions (670–700 °C, 1.5–2.2 GPa) lasted a maximum of c. 300 kyr. The relatively short duration of eclogite facies conditions requires that multiple transient heating events were superimposed on a longer (>106 yr) overall timescale of metamorphism. Granulite facies garnet cores are surrounded by multiple generations of eclogite facies rims formed by interface-coupled dissolution–reprecipitation (ICDR) reactions. The garnet rims indicate two rapid, regional-scale fluid pulses and additional smaller, more localized pulses. The fluid pulses may be linked to episodes of seismic moment release as well as transient heating via exothermic hydration reactions and/or shear deformation. Our model results predict up to 400 MPa of differential stress at the garnet core–rim contacts, consistent with observed eclogite facies microfractures that extend into relic granulite facies garnet cores. The microfractures indicate that ICDR was aided by compositional stress: diffusion ahead of the reaction front generated stress and fracturing that created porosity for further ICDR. Thus, compositional stress can markedly impact both diffusion systematics and intracrystalline deformation. Together, these results show that despite their brevity, transient thermal, fluid flux, and/or baric episodes may exert the primary controls on the mineralogical and rheological development of subducted lithologies, in contrast to the long, slow burial and exhumation typically envisioned for regional metamorphism.