Petrography and Mineral Chemistry of Some Deep Sea Basaltic Rocks from the Western Caroline Ridge and Yap Trench-Arc System

This paper reports the results about the petrography and mineral chemistry of 13 representative dredged basaltic rocks from the western Caroline Ridge (WCR) and Yap Trench-Arc system, and provides the chemical and tectonic informations based on the compositions of clinopyroxene phenocrysts. Compositions of olivine phenocrysts in some analyzed samples are Fo. Plagioclase phenocrysts have variable compositions ranging from An to An. The compositions of clinopyroxene phenocrysts vary according to geological environments; titansalite in atoll and guyot of WCR, diopside-augite in trough and bank of WCR, and endiopside in Yap Trench-Arc system. Application of the discrimination schemes proposed by Leterrier et al. (1982) suggests: (1) the samples from atoll-guyot belong to within plate alkali basalt, implying that western CR could be the continuation of eastern CR formed by hot spot magmatism, (2) the samples from the Yap Trench-Arc system with no present-day magmatism clearly indicate the occurrence of orogenic tholeiites presumably related to early island arc magmatisms in this area, however, (3) the samples from the bank and trough do not provide definitive informations, which might indicate the complexity of their origins.