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Karroo lavas and associated igneous rocks of Southern Africa

  • Session: Petrology And Mineralogy
  • Published:
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Abstract

This review deals mainly with the petrography, geochemistry and stratigraphic development of the Karroo lavas of southern Africa and, more briefly, with the post-Karroo lavas of the area.

The great majority of the Karroo lavas are tholeiitic basalts either poor in olivine or olivine-free, though great thicknesses of glassy, olivine-rich basalts, also of tholeiitic affinities, form the lower part of the sequence in certain restricted areas. Small amounts of alkalic types (nephelinite, shoshonite) are associated with the tholeiites. The basalts are overlain by a thick sequence of rhyolites with interbedded basalts in the eastern (monoclinal) part of the outcrop area. Overlying the rhyolites a younger basaltic sequence, including both tholeiitic and alkali basaltic types is locally exposed in southern Mozambique, while the Lupata Series of phonolites, trachytes and rhyolites of Cretaceous age is found further north in the Zambezi valley section of Mozambique. Certain tholeiites, formerly regarded as normal Karroo basalts, occuring in South West Africa, have recently been shown also to be of Cretaceous age.

A brief description of the intrusive rocks associated with the Jurassic and Cretaceous vulcanism is also given. The rocks include widespread sills and dykes of tholeiitic composition (the Karroo Dolerites) and numerous intrusive complexes covering a broad compositional range and including tholeiitic gabbros, granites and granophyres, quartz-syenites, nepheline syenites, carbonatites, ijolites, and other undersaturated types.

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  1. Grant Institute of Geology, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    K. G. Cox

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Cox, K.G. Karroo lavas and associated igneous rocks of Southern Africa. Bull Volcanol 35, 867–886 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02596852

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