Alkaline Rocks and Carbonatites of the World

Setup during HiTech AlkCarb: an online database of alkaline rock and carbonatite occurrences

Madeira Pluton

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Occurrence number: 
025-00-128
Country: 
Brazil
Region: 
Roraima Federal Territory
Location: 
Longitude: -60.10917, Latitude: 0.75861
Carbonatite: 
No

The Madeira pluton is a granitoid intrusion situated within the Madeira suite of the Pitinga province of northern Brazil. It is ellipsoidal in character, elongated NE-SW, with an area of ~60 km2. Vertical contacts are displayed with the country rock, consisting of silicic volcanic rocks of the Iricoumé Group of the Paleoproterozoic Uatumã Supergroup. Early phases that form the outer rim include a metaluminous wiborgitic rapakivi granite intruded by a peraluminous to metaluminous biotite granite, as revealed by xenoliths of the former entrained within the latter. Intruding this is a circular stock composed of albite granite, split into a core facies of peralkaline albite granite with notable minerals including riebeckite-arfvedsonite amphibole, cryolite, pyrochlore. Surrounding this is a rim of peraluminous albite granite, fluorite-bearing, and reddish in appearance due to hematite. Gradational contacts occur between the two, with the rim facies believed to represent an autometasomatised core facies. These rocks are exploited at Pitinga mine, with major ore minerals including cassiterite (Sn), thorite (Th), and zircon (Zr). Sn contents can reach as high as ~3400 ppm within the albite granite stock. Modal compositions, petrography, and an order of emplacement can be found in Costi et al. (2009). Geochemical data can be found in Costi et al. (2009) and Lenharo et al. (2002).

Economic: 
Sn-Nb-Ta-U-Zr-Th mineralisation located in the core of the pluton
Age: 
1810 ± 6 Ma (biotite granite) 1794 ± 19 Ma (albite granite) SHRIMP U-Pb zircon (Lenharo et al., 1998; Lenharo et al., 1999)
References: 

COSTI H.T., DALL’AGNOL, R., PICHAVANT, M. & RÄMÖ, O.T., 2009. The peralkaline tin-mineralized Madeira cryolite albite-rich granite of Pitanga, Amazonian Craton, Brazil: petrography, mineralogy and crystallization processes. The Canadian Mineralogist 47 pp 1301-1327. LENHARO, S.L.R., 1998. Evolução magmática e modelo metalogenético dos granitos mineralizados da região de Pitanga, Amazonas, Brasil. Doctoral thesis, University of São Paulo, Brazil. LENHARO, S.L.R., BORN, H. & POLLARD, P.J., 1999. Petrologic evolution and emplacement of the mineralised Pitinga granites, Brazil. The Origin of Granites and Related Rocks, Fourth Hutton Symposium. LENHARO, S.L.R., MOURA, A.M. & BOTELHO, N.F., 2002. Petrogenetic and mineralization processes in Paleo- to Mesoproterozoic rapakivi granites: examples from Pitinga and Goiás, Brazil. Precambrian Research 119 pp 277-299

Map: 
Fig 1. Map of the central stock at Madeira Pluton (Costi et al., 2009, Fig 2.a.)
Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith