| Popis: |
The Hessian Depression in Germany represents the northern continuation of the Upper Rhine Graben and is known for Cenozoic alkaline basaltic lavas. Many of these carry peridotite xenoliths of mantle origin, which were studied mainly in the 80-ies of the XX century (Hartmann & Wedepohl 1990 and references therein). These studies documented mantle lithosphere melting followed by metasomatism. Here we describe the xenoliths from the Stöpfling quarry near Homberg upon Efze. The quarry has been recultivated and sampling is not possible now, our samples come from the archival collection of the Department of Geochemistry of the University of Göttingen. In this abstract, we give an overview of newly collected major- and trace-element mineral-chemical data from 11 xenoliths.The xenoliths from Stöpfling are spinel-facies lherzolites and harzburgites. They consist of aggregates of few coarse (typically 4-6 mm across) grains of olivine and orthopyroxene embedded in fine-grained matrix of olivine, ortho- and clinopyroxene and spinel. Coarse-grained aggregates represent fragments of protogranular texture and are volumetrically prevailing. Spinel is commonly interstitial and has amaeboidal morphology. Locally, centimetre-thick layers of websterites cross-cut the peridotites. Hartmann & Wedepohl (1990) report traces ( |
