Fundamental Minerals

Sialic Minerals

Feldspars

Feldspathoids

Quartz

Femic Minerals

Spodumene

Accessory Minerals

Rare Accessory

Alteration Products

Microstructures

Rocks

Jacupiranga complex

Fogo island sövite

The Cape Verde Islands (Fig.1), Republica de Cabo Verde, comprise a horseshoe-shaped archipelago of ten main islands and numerous islets situated about 450 km west of Cape Verde, the westernmost point of West Africa. The islands are volcanic ocean islands, all lying on the Cape Verde Rise, which is supported by a thermal plume. The islands rest on Late Jurassic to Cretaceous oceanic crust. MORB pillow lavas from the oceanic crust have been uplifted by intrusive complexes on two of the islands: Maio and Sao Tiago. Of the ten islands in the archipelago, carbonatites occur on five: Brava, Fogo, Sao Tiago, Maio and Sao Vicente. The first four comprise the south-eastern group of the archipelago, and Sao Vicente is the single representative of the northern islands.

Fig.1: Cape Verde Archipelago and indication of the age (in red) of volcanoes for each island.

• Brava is believed to be the youngest volcanic centre of the archipelago. Coarse-grained sövites occur as dikes cutting ijolite in many parts of the central complex. In the east, a coarse white carbonatite intrusion with many ijolitic and nephelinitic xenoliths (up to 1 m) penetrates syenite, locally converting it to feldspathic fenites composed of pure K-feldspar. Biotite from a sövite in the basement gave a K-Ar age of 2.1 Ma. The overlying effusive rocks are mainly phonolitic tuffs and a few lavas, both silicate and carbonate. The Cachaco carbonatite lava flows are related to a small cone near the centre of the island. The uneroded morphology of the lava flow and cone suggests it formed very recently, probably within the last 1000 years.

• Fogo is located only 20 km east of Brava. The carbonatites of Fogo (all of which are sövites) occur in the basement, which is exposed in valleys incised in the western lower flanks of the island. Here sövites, sometimes containing abundant biotite, are cut by basic dikes and are overlain unconformably by numerous lavas coming from the main cone of Fogo. K/Ar ages of biotite from carbonatites yielded ages of 3.7 Ma.

• Sào Tiago contains three carbonatite complexes: Ribeira da Barca half-way up the west coast, Pensamento in the south and Arruela in the north. The carbonatites cut Miocene and older, primarily basanitic to nephelinitic basement. The Ribeira da Barca complex is an intrusion of coarse, white, phlogopite carbonatite intruded into and fenitizing essexite. At Pensamento, ijolites are exposed in a 0.5 km2 plug, described by Silva (1976). The carbonatites form a few ill-defined dikes and several net-veined yellow breccia plugs 50 m across, which also cut the adjacent basement probably formed during the submarine growth stage of the island. The Arruela complex covers about 10 km from Arruela to Angra. The complex includes plugs, dikes and a wide variety of extrusive tuffs, some pisolitic. One small brecciated area on the east side of the complex in MORB pillow basalt basement is strongly mineralized.

• Maio is the oldest and most deeply eroded island of the archipelago. It has a central intrusive complex of essexites and syenites emplaced in a collar of steeply dipping MORB pillow lavas and Cretaceous limestones, which are locally intensively cut by basic dike swarms. The carbonatites form part of a dike swarm (0.5-3.0 m across), cutting vertical MORB pillow lavas in the west central part of the island. The carbonatites are dolomitic, being medium-grained and pale brown. Gerlach et al. (1988) report that melilitites, nephelinites, basanites and carbonatites in the Malhadra Pedra Formation have an age of 7 Ma.

• Sào Vicente has the largest volume of exposed carbonatites in the Cape Verdes. Although eroded, a mountainous rim of outward-dipping nephelinitic to basanitic lavas and pyroclastics surrounds a central eroded area of breccias and minor intrusions of essexite, ijolite and syenite. The carbonatites, all from the central area, occur as dikes and other minor intrusive masses, which cut the breccias, mainly carbonatitic, and some ijolitic. Carbonatite dike intrusion is associated with minor uplift of the north-east portion of the island in the Late Miocene or Pliocene. The largest carbonatite structure is the banded Camille dike (15 m across) in the centre of the island, which cuts carbonate-rich breccias.

Capo Verde Caronatites
Oceanic carbonatites from the Cape Verde and Canary Islands can be divided into calcio (calcitic) - and magnesio (dolomitic) - carbonatites based on their CaO and MgO contents. The calcio-carbonatite rocks show only minor recrystallization in thin sections and have stable isotopic compositions that plot within or near the fields for primary (mantle-derived) carbonatites. In contrast to the calcio-carbonatites, the magnesiocarbonatites show extensive recrystallization accompanied by the replacement of calcite with secondary dolomite. The magnesio-carbonatites generally occur as smaller structures and are usually found in porous country rocks such as pillow lavas and breccias.

Bibliography

• Geochemistry of oceanic carbonatites compared with continental carbonatites: mantle recycling of oceanic crustal carbonate. Kaj Hoernle (2002), Contrib Mineral Petrol (2002)
• Intrusive carbonatites from Brava Island (Cape Verde): preliminary geochemical data. Mourao, C.
• Eric A.K.Middlemost (1985): Magmas and Magmatic Rocks. Longman, London
• Ron H. Vernon (2004): A pratical guide to rock microstructure. Cambridge editore
• K.G.Cox, J.D.Bell & R.J Pankhurst (1979): The interpretetion of igneous rocks. George Allen&Unwin editori.
• David Shelley (1983): Igneous and metamorphic rocks under the microscope. Campman & Hall editori

Calcite and Biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and Biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island,from Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite and Biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 10x (Field of view = 2mm)	Calcite, biotite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 10x (Field of view = 2mm)
Calcite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite, biotite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite and Apatite (basal sections) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite, biotite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and Apatite (I order gray) crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite and biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite and biotite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and biotite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Biotite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite, Biotite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite, Biotite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite, Biotite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite, Biotite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite, Biotite and amphiboles crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite crystals in a sövite from from Fogo island, Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite crystals in a sövite from from Fogo island, Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite, biotite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite biotite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite biotite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)	Calcite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 2x (Field of view = 7mm)
Calcite and biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. PPL image, 10x (Field of view = 2mm)	Calcite and biotite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 10x (Field of view = 2mm)	Calcite and apatite crystals in a sövite from Fogo island, Cape Verde. XPL image, 10x (Field of view = 2mm)