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New Light on the Dawros Peridotite, Connemara, Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Bernard E. Leake
Bernard E. Leake
Affiliation:
Geology Dept., The University, Bristol, 8.
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Abstract

It is established that the Dawros peridotite of north Connemara contains basic plagioclase mainly in a gabbroic layer in the peridotite but occasionally as rare crystals in the peridotite itself. Carlsbadalbite twin extinction angles indicate that the composition of this feldspar is similar to that in the adjoining Currywongaun-Doughruagh intrusion and that in the ultrabasic rocks of the Cashel-Lough Wheelaun intrusion and the Roundstone intrusion of south Connemara. As all these feldspars are extremely heavily saussuritized because of metamorphism it is difficult to determine their precise composition and so an exceptionally fresh plagioclase from an anorthosite in the Currywongaun-Doughruagh intrusion has been chemically analysed. It is An91·5Ab6·8Or1·7. This is in close agreement with the composition given by measuring 2θ(131)–2θ(131), the refractive indices and 2V while the extinction angles of Carlsbadalbite twins give only a slightly too anorthitic result (An95). The particularly calcic nature of the plagioclase is strong evidence that all the ultrabasic bodies in Connemara are genetically related. Some new structural ideas on the Dawros body are suggested which integrate the structure, petrography and cryptic variation.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 101 , Issue 1 , 06 February 1964 , pp. 63 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

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