A Reconnaisance Study of Phase Boundaries in Low-Alkali Basaltic Liquids

New data, derived from microprobe analyses of melting experiments,are presented in the form of sub-projections in the model basaltsystem, Ol-Pl-Wo-SiO₂, to illustrate the shifts in the liquidusfields of olivine, plagioclase, spinel, pyroxene, and silicain low-alkali liquids as functions of variable Wo componentand Mg. The projections are calculated in terms of oxygen unitsto avoid the ‘non conservative’ properties of moleunits and to provide a better representation of the volume proportionsof minerals. These projections show that over a wide range ofcomposition the complex, natural basalt system has liquidusboundaries that resemble many of those in the simpler CaO-MgO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂system. One important feature of the natural system is the progressivechange in the dominant low-Ca pyroxene along the olivine liquidussurface from protoenstatite to orthoenstatite to pigeonite asMg decreases. Another notable feature is the expansion of theplagioclase liquid field at the expense of the olivine and low-Capyroxene fields as Mg decreases in low-alkali liquids. Increasingalkali concentration has almost exactly the opposite effectso that evolved terrestrial basalts have higher proportionsof feldspar components than their lunar and eucritic counterparts. The new phase diagrams indicate that low-alkali liquids residualto those that produced the ancient, ferroan lunar anorthositesshould have crystallized an amount of ferro-quartz-gabbro equivalentto 10 per cent of the volumes of their parents. The scarcityof such rocks among the returned lunar samples poses a problemfor simple models of lunar petrogenesis.