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Mineralogy and geochemistry of the « Low potassium » series of the roccamonfina volcanic suite (Campania, South Italy)

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Abstract

In the Campania area volcanic rocks belonging both to the trachytic (low K) and tephritic (high K) series occur, the high K series being well subordinate to the low K one. Volcanology of the trachytic series shows that: 1) the most widespread products are trachytes and alkali-trachytes, 2) in the stratigraphic sequences the most evolved (salic) volcanics are the oldest.

The Roccamonfina trachytic series includes several Hy and Q normative lavas, whereas the majority of the Phlegraean Fields rock samples are Ne normative. In the A F M diagram, the lack of the Fe-rich phases gives a linear trend similar to the calc-alkaline series.

An important feature of the Roccamonfina trachytic series is the coexistence of two clinopyroxenes of diopsidic and salitic composition observed in all the studied samples. The phenocrystic assemblage (clinopyroxenes, Mg-olivine, Mg-biotite) indicates that the crystallization of the melt probably occurred under relatively highpH2O conditions. The crystallization of the diopsidic pyroxene was controlled mainly by a relatively high silica activity of the magma, whereas the salitic pyroxene, which crystallized at a lithostatic pressure lower than the diopside, might be related to the increase of the alumina activity in the final trachytic liquid. The occurrence of two clinoproxenes suggests two main episodes of crystallization of the parental latitic magma, one at a depth of about 15 km producing diopside phenocrysts and the second at a shallower depth where salite was in equilibrium with the residual melt.

The volcanic rocks of the Roccamonfina trachytic series (latites, trachytes and alkalitrachytes) have likely been generated by fractionation of a latitic melt, whereas the strongly porphyritic trachybasalts formed by crystal settling of pyroxenes and olivine from a more evolved latitic melt.

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  1. Istituto di Mineralogia, University of Naples, Italy

    M. R. Ghiara & L. Lirer

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  1. M. R. Ghiara
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  2. L. Lirer
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Ghiara, M.R., Lirer, L. Mineralogy and geochemistry of the « Low potassium » series of the roccamonfina volcanic suite (Campania, South Italy). Bull Volcanol 40, 39–56 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02599828

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