Alkaline Rocks and Carbonatites of the World

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

Daura

stripes

Occurrence number: 
122-00-001
Country: 
Nigeria
Location: 
Longitude: 8.52, Latitude: 12.92
Carbonatite: 
No

The form of this complex is not clear, consisting as it does of outcrops of granite, syenite and rhyolite scattered over an area of 25x10 km. Rhyolite is the most abundant rock type and includes lavas, tuffs, agglomerates and, locally, ignimbrites as well as numerous intrusions. The extrusive rhyolites, which are considered by Turner and Webb (1974) to have emanated from many pipes and fissures, are sparsely feldsparphyric and the ignimbrites are comenditic. The intrusive rhyolites form dykes and broad dyke-like intrusions and contain phenocrysts of quartz, alkali feldspar and hedenbergitic pyroxene with arfvedsonite, aegirine-augite and aenigmatite in the groundmass. A quartz syenite intrusion of about 1 km2 in the central part of the area has chilled margins inside which is a zone of fine- to medium-grained quartz-rich, peralkaline syenite containing sodic amphibole, aegirine-augite and aenigmatite. This grades into a coarse-grained, quartz-poor hornblende syenite which forms the central part of the intrusion. Biotite granite occupies an isolated hill to the southeast. It is of variable granularity and includes varieties with fluorite and accessory columbite and zircon.

Age: 
Rb-Sr on a sample of quartz syenite gave 307±13 Ma (Rahaman et al., 1984).
References: 

RAHAMAN, M.A., VAN BREEMEN, O., BOWDEN, P. and BENNETT, J.N. 1984. Age migrations of anorogenic ring complexes in northern Nigeria. Journal of Geology, 92: 173-84.TURNER, D.C. and WEBB, P.K. 1974. The Daura igneous complex, N Nigeria; a link between the Younger Granite districts of Nigeria and S Niger. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 130: 71-7.

Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith