Abstract
The Brown Leucitic Tuff (BLT) is a poorly to strongly lithified compositionally zoned pyroclastic-flow deposit with a minimum volume of 3 to 5 km3. It erupted from Roccamonfina Volcano about 385000 years ago, after formation of the summit caldera. Individual flow units are grouped into three facies (white, brown, and orange) which primarily differ in pumice color, lithic content, and matrix cementation. Pumices from the BLT range from phonolitic leucite-tephrites to leucite-trachytes (7.0 to 2.2 wt% CaO), covering over half of the total spectrum of High-K Series magmas known from Roman Region volcanoes. White-facies units dominate in lower stratigraphic levels and their pumices have the lowest CaO contents, indicating a general trend toward more basic compositions as the eruption evolved. At higher stratigraphic levels, however, orange- and brown-facies units are interbedded with other whitefacies units, indicating reversals in the dominant compositional progression.
BLT pumices have crystal contents of 9.9 to 0.6 vol%, with green salite>plagioclase>sanidine>biotite>titanomagnetite>analcime (after leucite)>apatite>pyrrhotite. In most samples, plagioclase (An85–95) and sanidine (Or75–90) have much lower Na2O contents than usually found in coexisting feldspars, yet these are interpreted as equilibrium pairs. Primary leucite has been almost completely replaced by analcime. All samples also contain xenocrysts of colorless diopside and forsteritic olivine (Fo83–92). Recurrent alternations from colorless diopside to green salite are present in single clinopyroxene crystals and appear to reflect a complex history of magma mixing.
Whole-rock BLT pumice compositions conform closely to High-K Series lavas from Roccamonfina for all elements except Na2O and K2O. The former is relatively enriched and the latter relatively depleted in mafic BLT pumices with >5.6% CaO; these differences reflect strong analcimization of abundant groundmass leucite crystals in these pumices. Otherwise, major and trace element data support fractionation of observed minerals in generating the compositional diversity among BLT pumices. Mineral assemblages and compositions of cumulate monzonite and syenite nodules carried to the surface during the BLT eruption correspond closely to the fractionated phases predicted by least-squares modeling.
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Luhr, J.F., Giannetti, B. The Brown Leucitic Tuff of Roccamonfina Volcano (Roman Region, Italy). Contrib Mineral Petrol 95, 420–436 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00402203
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00402203