Alkaline Rocks and Carbonatites of the World

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

Delgo Area

stripes

Occurrence number: 
155-00-006
Country: 
Sudan
Location: 
Longitude: 30.58, Latitude: 20.17
Carbonatite: 
No

Franz et al. (1993) describe briefly a province of igneous rocks extending over an area of 200x150 km on either side of the Nile in the vicinity of Delgo. These rocks mostly form isolated dykes and small intrusions of basalt, trachyte and phonolite with an area of ignimbrite extending over 12x7 km. In the southwest of the area a ring-shaped intrusion 3.5 km in diameter, Jebel Sheikh, consists of quartz syenite in the south, a central area of nepheline syenite and a northern part of microsyenite, trachyte and phonolite. There are ring- and radial dykes of rhyolite and trachyte.

Age: 
K-Ar determinations on minerals from syenite gave dates of 82 to 87 Ma and a felsic dyke 79±2 Ma (Franz et al., 1993). A K-Ar isochron age, based on mineral concentrates from two samples from Jebel Sheikh, of 89.9( 1.8 Ma is given by Muller-Sohnius and Horn (1994).
References: 

FRANZ, G., HARMS, U., DENKLER, T. and PASTEELS, P. 1993. Late Cretaceous igneous activity in the Delgo uplift (Northern Province, Sudan). In U. Thorweihe and H. Schandelmeier (eds) Geoscientific Research in northeast Africa. 227-30. Balkema, Rotterdam.MULLER-SOHNIUS, D and HORN, P. 1994. K-Ar dating of ring complexes and fault systems in Northern Kordofan, Sudan: evidence for independent magmatic and tectonic activity. Geologische Rundschau, 83: 604-13.

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