The Colima volcanic complex, Mexico: Part II. Late-quaternary cinder cones

Abstract

Since the late Pleistocene, eleven cinder and lava cones have erupted on the floor of the southern Colima graben, NE and NW of the large, active, andesitic volcano Colima. Scoria and lava samples from nine of the cones form a completely transitional basic alkalic series including basanites (9), leucite-basanites (3), and minettes (15), the commonest variety of mica lamprophyre. These samples represent primitive, high temperature magmas with 47.6–50.3% SiO₂, 7.4–15.3% MgO, 2.5–4.4% K₂O, and 2.2–9.9% normative nepheline. All members of this basic alkalic suite contain Mg-olivine (Fo_75–94), chromite, augite, and late plagioclase and titanomagnetite. The petrographic transition from basanite to minette is marked by the appearance of sanidine and the volatile-bearing phases phlogopite, apatite, and analcime during late stages of crystallization. As these phases increase in abundance, presumably reflecting a rise in magmatic volatile content, there are corresponding increases in the whole rock concentrations of 16 incompatible elements. Although these incompatible elements are relatively abundant even in the basanites, many are highly concentrated in the minettes: Ba≦ 4,200 ppm, Sr≦3,100 ppm, Zr≦ 550 ppm, Ce≦190 ppm, Hf ≦18 ppm. Among the incompatible elements, the degrees of enrichment in the minettes relative to the basanites decrease in the order: H, Th, Ce, La, Nd, Zr, Hf, U, Ba, Sm, Eu, Pb, P, Nb, Sr, Ti. These enrichments may reflect the increasing importance of minor, incompatible element rich mantle phases during partial melting. The concentrations of alkali metals K, Na, Rb, and Cs do not correlate with these other elemental enrichments. The leucite-basanties have similar incompatible element contents to many minettes, differing from them only in the presence of leucite rather than analcime, and Ti-F-rich groundmass phlogopite rather than hydrous phlogopite phenocrysts; thus the leucite-basanites represent relatively dry equivalents of minettes.

Two of the eleven cinder cones are calc-alkaline in nature and do not belong to the basanite-minette group; the easternmost cone is constructed of high-Al basalt, and the northernmost of basaltic andesite. The high-Al basalt (49.5% SiO₂, 9.3% MgO, 221 ppm Ni) closely approximates a parental magma to the post-caldera andesitic suite of V. Colima (56.5–61.6% SiO₂). The basaltic-andesite is relatively enriched in incompatible elements compared to the high-Al basalt — V. Colima trend.

The ne-normative basanite-minette samples are highly enriched in incompatible elements, while the contemporaneous hy — qz-normative calc-alkaline suite, encompassing the high-Al basalt and V. Colima's andesites, is characterized by relatively low abundances of these elements. No likely mineral assemblage can relate the alkaline and calc-alkaline suites through crystal fractionation; they probably represent fundamentally different melting events.

During the Quaternary, the main focus of andesitic volcanism in the southern Colima graben has migrated southward with time. Volcán Colima marks its present position, 5 km south of the Pleistocene volcano Nevado de Colima, and another 15 km from the still older Volcán Cantaro. The eruptions of basic alkalic magma probably occurred during the late stages of Nevado's life and through the life of V. Colima. They generally migrated from west to east with time, towards V. Cantaro. The most recent cone, V. Apaxtepec, is the only one east of the andesitic Colima-Cantaro axis. The oldest and the two youngest cones produced basanites, while minettes dominated at cones of intermediate ages. The cinder cone eruptions may have coincided with a phase of lamprophyre dike injection into plutons solidifying beneath the extinct volcanoes north of V. Colima. The southern end of the Colima graben can be viewed, then, as the volcanic analog of many classical, post-plutonic, hypabyssal lamprophyre localities.