Abstract
The study is carried out to list mineralogy and texture of the basalt in Hail region. The basalt flows belong to the Arabian Harrat volcanism. Cenozoic volcanism has produced 13, vast, basaltic fields in western Saudi Arabia, covering a total area of about 100,000 sq. km. The volcanism starts in the late Cretaceous time and continues periodically into the Holocene. The basaltic field presently investigated is known as Harrat Al-Hamad (or Harrat As-Shamah) which lies in northwestern Saudi Arabia, and continues northwards into Jordan. Mineralogical analysis of 20 rock samples indicates that the rocks are products of continental intra-plate magmatism; mostly as coarse-grained silica—under saturated olivine-rich alkali basalt. Mineralogical study shows that rocks are olivine, plagioclase, pyroxene, Nepheline and Opaque minerals. They correspond to alkali olivine basalts. Moreover, the main well-defined texture is intergranular, vesicular and amygdaloidal texture.
Highlights
Basalts are the most abundant extrusive igneous rocks, which have erupted on earth throughout its history
Harrat Al-Shaam is a large intra-continental basalt terrain, which covers an area of about 50,000 km2, about 25% of the Arabian Harrat
Volcanic activity that accompanied the opening of the Red Sea from the Miocene (25 Ma) to the present, resulted in the formation of vast fields of subaerial basaltic flows in the western part of Saudi Arabia, referred to by the Arabic term “Harrat”
Summary
Basalts are the most abundant extrusive igneous rocks, which have erupted on earth throughout its history. Their most extrusive forms are lava flows and pillows in which they constitute the bulk of the major lava plateau on the continents, ocean floor and significant parts of volcanic in rift valleys. Basalt as a general term is a finegrained, mafic volcanic rock containing (44 - 54)% SiO2. It consists essentially of calcic plagioclase and abundant mafic minerals mainly Ca-rich clinopyroxene, but may contain quartz, orthopyroxene, olivine, feldspathoid, small proportions of alkali feldspar (
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