NEPHELINITES

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 384 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NAN-NEW

NEPHELINITES . The group of effusive rocks which contains nepheline with plagioclase felspar is subdivided into nephelinetephrites and nepheline-basanites, while those which contain nepheline but not felspar are nephelinites and nepheline-basalts. The tephrites differ from the basanites in the absence of olivine, and the same distinction subsists between the nephelinites and nepheline-basalts.
Lavas with nepheline, plagioclase and augite = nephelinetephrites.
Lavas with nepheline, plagioclase, augite and olivine= nephelinebasanites.
Lavas with nepheline and augite = nephelinites.
Lavas with nepheline, augite and olivine = nepheline-basalts.
In their essential and accessory minerals, appearance and structure, these rocks have much in common, and they tend to occur in a natural association as basic rocks comparatively rich in alkalis and alumina. The nephelinites and tephrites are ratherclosely linked to the phonolites and pass into them by various gradations. They are usually richer in alkalis and silica and contain less iron, lime and

magnesia

MAGNESIA

than the basanites and nepheline-basalts, a difference which finds expression in the presence of olivine and the smaller amount of felspars and felspathoids in the latter.
The nepheline is colourless and transparent when fresh, often in six-sided prisms, but also as irregular interstitial masses filling the spaces between the other minerals, and hard to identify owing to its low

double

refraction and frequent decomposition. Leucite appears in some tephrites; hauyne is more frequent as small dodecahedra often filled with black inclusions. The augite varies a good deal, being

bright

BRIGHT, JOHN (1811-188g)
BRIGHT, SIR CHARLES TILSTON

green or dark green (aegirine) and rich in soda in some tephrites and nephelinites, while in basanites and basalts it is often brown " basaltic " augite or purple titaniferous " augite. It has often good crystalline form, and occurs as eight-sided monoclinic prisms, but the soda augites may be of

late

LATE

crystallization and form mossy or irregular growths in the matrix. Brown hornblende is much less common, and a red biotite is very characteristic of certain nephelinites. Of the felspars, labradorite is probably the most common, with more acid varieties of plagioclase. Sanidine is by no means absent, but may be considered as an accessory. The olivine presents no peculiarities. Melilite, perofskite, psetidobrookite, melanite garnet, iron oxides, apatite and chromite are occasionally met with,
All these rocks are practically confined to lavas of Tertiary and

recent

RECENT

age, though some occur as dikes or small intrusive masses. The plutonic facies of these rocks are found among the theralites, shonkinites, essexites and 'ijolites. In the British Isles they are exceedingly scarce, though nepheline-basanite occurs in a dike which is presumably Tertiary, cutting the Triassic rocks at Butterton in Staffordshire, and nepheline-basalt has been found in a single neck at John o' Groat's in Caithness and at one or two places near North Berwick in Haddingtonshire. They attain a great development in the

Canary

CANARY
CANARY (Serinus canarius)

Islands (Teneriffe, Grand

Canary

CANARY
CANARY (Serinus canarius)

, &c.) and in the Azores, Cape Verde Islands and Fernando Noronha. In Germany they are represented among the Tertiary eruptive rocks of the Rhine

district

DISTRICT

and Thuringia, at the extinct craters of the Eiffel and at the Kaiserstuhl. In central Bohemia there are many occurrences of nepheline-tephrites, basanites and basalts which though fine grained contain all their minerals in excellent preservation. The nephelinite of Katzenbuckel in the Odenwald is well known. Contrasted with the phonolites and leucitophyres these rocks are scarce in Italy and the Mediterranean province, but leucite-bearing nepheline-tephrites occur at Monte Vulture and nepheline-basalts in

Tripoli

. In America these rocks occur in

Texas

TEXAS

, in the Bearpaw Mountains of Montana and at Cripple Creek, Colorado. From Argentina some members have been described : thay have a great extension in East Africa (Somaliland and Masai-land) and occur also in North Nigeria. A few also have been described from New South Wales, New Zealand (Dunedin) and Tasmania. (J. S. F.)'

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