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High pressure phases in Nigerian Cenozoic lavas distribution and geotectonic setting

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Abstract

Olivine nodules of the kind well known from alkaline basaltic associations all over the world, are widespread in Nigeria’s Cenozoic volcanic province. Ultramafic nodules in the lavas are accompanied in many places by high pressure megacryst assemblages, including pyropic garnet, orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, spinel, amphibole, ilmenite, and sodic to intermediate plagioclase, As yet there is only circumstantial evidence for derivation of abundant large alluvial zircon and sapphire crystals from basaltic lavas southwest of Jos.

Brief descriptions and some optical measurements are provided for each assemblage.

Gravitational sorting of megacrysts during transport to the surface may explain why some assemblages are virtually monomineralic.

Phonolites and trachytes are subordinate to basalts in the province, but are important in that at least one of the trachytes carries a rich and varied assemblage of lherzolite and pyroxenite nodules, as well as cognate plutonic fragments and albite megacrysts. Olivine nodules are now known in both phonolite and trachyte, and provide important evidence that salic lavas can be generated at upper mantle depths in anorogenic environments.

A map is presented to show how the distribution of Cenozoic vulcanism in both Nigeria and neighboring Cameroun may be controlled by ancient lineaments, reactivated at intervals throughout the Phanerozoic history of this region, especially during and after continental disruption in the Mesozoic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Geology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

    J. B. Wright

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  1. J. B. Wright
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Paper presentend at the IAVCEI Symposium «Volcanoes and Their Roots» Oxford, Sept. 1969.

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Wright, J.B. High pressure phases in Nigerian Cenozoic lavas distribution and geotectonic setting. Bull Volcanol 34, 833–847 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02596804

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02596804

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