Abstract
New analyses show that Tertiary tholeiitic basalts from the Baffin Bay area have generally primitive characteristics. Comparison of the bulk chemical compositions of the basalts with material of known phase relations suggests that these basalts have properties intermediate between investigated natural and synthetic compositions. A discrete group of these basalts coincides in projection with the composition of the liquid produced by the partial melting of garnet periodotite at 30 kb. The compositions in this group are believed to be parental to the other rocks in the province principally through a mechanism of olivine fractionation. Eclogite fractionation is invoked to account for the chemical differences between the two suites of basalts in Baffin Bay.
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Clarke, D.B. Tertiary basalts of Baffin Bay: Possible primary magma from the Mantle. Contr. Mineral. and Petrol. 25, 203–224 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00371131
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00371131