Mount Ararat

Overview

Massive banded and disseminations in tholeiitic basalt. Consists of a basal boninitic lava sequence, overlain by a thick pile of low-K tholeiitic basalts with geochemical affinities to basalts associated with arc splitting in modern intra-oceanic arcs. Considered to have formed in the fore-arc region of an intra-oceanic arc in the Mid-Cambrian (ca 520-525 Ma?) and to have been emplaced as a massive ophiolite sheet westward onto a thin passive margin during arc-continental collision around 510 Ma. Overturned (stratigraphic sequence is corrected).

Geological Context

Tectonic Setting: Pelite-mafic in mature oceanic backarc

Resources & Operations

Operator: 0

Data Provenance

Source: USGS MRDS