TITLE:
Mineralogy and the Texture of the Basalt in Hail Region, Saudi Arabia
AUTHORS:
Sana’a Odat
KEYWORDS:
Mineralogy, Texture; Hail, Basalt, Alkali Olivine, Saudi Arabia
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Geology,
Vol.4 No.5,
May
9,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The study is carried out
to list mineralogy and texture of the basalt in Hail region. The basalt flows
belong to the Arabian Harrat volcanism. Cenozoic volcanism has produced 13,
vast, basaltic fields in western Saudi Arabia, covering a total area of about
100,000 sq. km. The volcanism starts in the late Cretaceous time and continues
periodically into the Holocene. The basaltic field presently investigated is
known as Harrat Al-Hamad (or Harrat As-Shamah) which lies in northwestern Saudi
Arabia, and continues northwards into Jordan. Mineralogical analysis of 20 rock
samples indicates that the rocks are products of continental intra-plate
magmatism; mostly as coarse-grained silica—under saturated olivine-rich alkali
basalt. Mineralogical study shows that rocks are olivine, plagioclase,
pyroxene, Nepheline and Opaque minerals. They correspond to alkali olivine basalts.
Moreover, the main well-defined texture is intergranular, vesicular and
amygdaloidal texture.