Peralkaline Acid Tendencies in Gran Canaria. (Canary Island)

Abstract

The study of a volcanic series from the island of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands) in which alkaline and peralkaline, saturated and undersaturated rocks coexist, is reported here. Materials with high volatile content (ignimbritic trachytes) were first emitted and the series ended with the eruption of phonolitic lavas. The average peralkalinity index in these rocks is typically about 1.0 and, therefore, peralkaline rocks coexist with non-peralkaline ones. However, a maximum in peralkalinity is found in the ignimbritic rocks of the lower part of the series. In spite of the evident acid peralkaline tendencies of these rocks, it does not seem appropriate to classify them as pantellerites or comendites. Nor are they consistent with the genetic processes proposed for rocks of similar composition and oceanic environment. The crystallization of the feldspars controls the variation trends among the different magmas but the fractionation alone does not sufficiently explain the genesis of successive fluids. Various factors seem to point to the important role which a gas-transfer process causing a geochemical stratification inside the magmatic chamber may have played. The occurrence of peralkaline silicics at Gran Canaria, which is located for away from the active Mid-Atlantic ridge, is not related to transitional basalts. These rocks are a deviation from the main undersaturated alkalic trend which characterizes the volcanism of the Canary Islands, their genesis being related to the realization of favourable local volcanic conditions.