Crystallisation of nepheline syenite in a subvolcanic magma system: Tenerife, canary islands

Abstract

The late Quaternary phonolitic pumice deposits of Tenerife, Canary Islands, are the product of a periodically-tapped, periodically-replenished, zoned alkaline magma system. Nepheline syenite blocks occur as lithics in the deposits, and provide solidified representatives of the phonolite magmas. The blocks are considered to have crystallised in the roof zone of the active magma system at a depth of roughly 4 km beneath the Las Cañadas caldera. Conversion of highly-differentiated phonolitic magma to solid nepheline syenite was achieved between 770° and 680°C. Quenched glass of extreme composition in one erupted block provides a sample of the last interstitial liquid; comparison of this sample with phonolitic pumice, and with fully crystallised syenites, allows reconstruction of the magmatic, interstitial and subsolidus crystallisation histories of nepheline syenite. Phases represented by the phenocryst assemblage of the most differentiated phonolitic pumices (sanidine, sodalite, nepheline, Na-poor pyroxene, biotite, sphene and magnetite) formed an initial crystal “mush”, containing abundant trapped liquid, on the walls of the magma chamber. Interstitial crystallisation, involving the conversion of pyroxene to Na-rich compositions, continued growth of felsic phases, and partial to complete consumption of biotite, sphene, magnetite and apatite, was accompanied by extreme sodium enrichment in the residual liquid. Stellate aegirine, lavenite, loparite and Mn-rich ilmenite are among the final products of magmatic crystallisation. Modification of feldspar primocrysts persisted into subsolidus conditions. It is suggested that complete solidification of an open-system alkaline magma chamber results in the formation of an alkaline alkaline ring complex.