Náttúrufræðingurinn

Volume

Náttúrufræðingurinn - 1985, Page 38

Náttúrufræðingurinn - 1985, Page 38
SUMMARY Icelandic rock types IV. Basaltic icelandite and icelandite. by Sveinn P. Jakobsson Icelandic Museum of Natural History P.O. Box 5320 125 Reykjavík The article describes the tholeiitic inter- mediate rock types basaltic icelandite and icelandite. A Tertiary lava flow in the Þingmúli (Thingmuli) central volcano in eastern Iceland serves as an example for a basaltic icelandite. This is a very fine- grained and dense rock (Fig. 1A) with few phenocrysts (less than 1 percent) of plagioclase, magnetite, augite and apatite. The groundmass consists of plagioclase, clinopyroxene and ore. A chemical analys- is (Table I) indicates a Si02 content of 55.03 percent and a relatively high MgO- content. A postglacial lava at Lúdent in the Námafjall volcanic system in northern Ice- land (Fig. 2) serves as an example for icelandite. The lava is heterogenous with Si02 varying between 56.2 percent and 66.8%, a variation which may be typical for the intermediate eruption units. The sample chosen has a Si02 content of 58.9 percent and MgO content of 3.2 percent (Table II). It is extremely fine-grained, whith about 1—2 percent of phenocrysts of plagioclase, augite, magnetite, hypersthene and olivine (Fig. 1B). The term icelandite was intro- duced by Carmichael (1964), in order to avoid confusion with the typical orogenic andesites. Basaltic icelandite and icelandite are not common rocks in Iceland, they have, how- ever, been discovered in most of those tholeiitic central volcanoes which have been carefully studied (Fig. 3). By rough estimate, some 5 percent of all volcanic formations in Iceland may be intermediate tholeiitic rocks. 84

x

Náttúrufræðingurinn

Direct Links

If you want to link to this newspaper/magazine, please use these links:

Link to this newspaper/magazine: Náttúrufræðingurinn
https://timarit.is/publication/337

Link to this issue:

Link to this page:

Link to this article:

Please do not link directly to images or PDFs on Timarit.is as such URLs may change without warning. Please use the URLs provided above for linking to the website.