Geochemistry of High-silica Peralkaline Rhyolites, Naivasha, Kenya Rift Valley

The Recent (<15000 y) volcanic complex of southwest Naivasha,Kenya, consists of mildly peralkaline (comenditic) rhyolitedomes, lava flows, air fall pumices, and lake sediments, withminor, peripheral, basalts and hawaiites. The comendites areeither aphyric or sparsely porphyritic, few samples containing>5 per cent phenocrysts. Phenocryst minerals are quartz-sanidine-ferrohedenbergite-fayalite-titanomagnetite-ilmenite-riebeckite-arfvedsonite-aenigmatite-biotite-zircon.Ferrohedenbergite and zircon are restricted to less peralkaline,and amphibole, aenigmatite, and biotite to more peralkaline,rocks. The comendites show unusually strong enrichment in Cs, F, Hf,Nb, Rb, REE, Ta, Th, U, Y, Zn, and Zr, and extreme depletionin Mg, Ca, Ba, Co, and Sr. REE patterns are moderately LREE-enriched,with large, negative Eu anomalies. Values of LIL/HFS elementratios, such as Th/Ta and Rb/Zr, are unusually high for peralkalinerhyolites, and are consistent with a substantial crustal componentin the comendites. Parameters such as LREE/HREE and Zr/Nb ratiosindicate that the Naivasha rhyolites represent several pulsesof closely related, but subtly different, magmas. Sanidine/glasspartition coefficients for Ba, Pb, Rb, Sr, U, and the REE arepresented for one specimen. Major and trace element modelling, and feldspar-rock relationships,show that closed system crystal fractionation cannot alone accountfor the overall compositional variations in the comendites.A model involving partial melting of variable crustal sourcerocks and migration of dissolved volatile-metal complexes maybe appropriate at Naivasha.