Chinduzi

Chinduzi is situated at the western end of the Mongolowe-Chaone-Chikala line of nepheline syenite-syenite intrusions (No. 103-00-027) and is continuous with Mongolowe through a low saddle in which runs the main Zomba-Liwonde road. Although the mass is known as Chinduzi the northern part is called Mberekezi (Bloomfield, 1965a). The intrusion has not been studied in as much detail as the adjacent ones. The low hills of Chinduzi and Mberekezi were mapped by Bloomfield (1965a) as nepheline syenite with faulted areas of pulaskite to the west and a further area of pulaskite extending northeastwards to the western margin of the Mongolowe complex. Along the northern edge of the intrusion there is a zone several hundred metres wide of fenitized gneiss and gneiss also extends around the western and southern margins. Elsewhere the contacts are hidden beneath recent sediments. Basic xenoliths are widespread and thin pegmatitic bands are common. Dykes of foyaite cut the nepheline syenites, notably along the northern margin and Bloomfield (1965a) correlates these with the Junguni intrusion (No. 103-00-025). Most of the Chinduzi rocks are aegirine-biotite-nepheline syenites with katophorite occurring in about one third of the samples studied by Woolley and Jones (1987). Analyses of nepheline, pyroxene, which ranges continuously from salite to aegirine, katophorite and mica are given and discussed by Woolley and Platt (1986). Four whole rock analyses are in Woolley and Jones (1987).