Alkaline Rocks: Economic and Geodynamic Significance Through Geological Time
Alkaline igneous rocks are defined as having an excess of alkali metals compared to silica and characteristically host primary feldspathoid minerals. Despite being uncommon in nature, they have a wide diversity of mineralogical and chemical composition and are recorded from several geological settings, including continental, post-collisional, island-arcs and rift zones. Typically, such alkaline rock complexes host intrusive lamprophyres and carbonatites as well as alkaline granitoid rocks often associated with extrusive alkaline basalts, trachytes, tephrites, dacites and phonolites.
Evaluation of such complex rock types has contributed to the understanding of Earth’s evolution, development and composition of the mantle and, as this book’s title implies, the geodynamic setting of the host geological environments over time. In addition, it has been recognised that alkaline rocks can host potentially economic concentrations of precious-and rare-metal mineral deposits.
Currently, this subject is very topical given geopolitical concerns over the supply of rare metals such as lanthanides, zirconium, niobium and beryllium, as well as record prices for precious metals. Thus, this new publication presenting data on alkaline rocks from different global terranes and the use of geochemical and mineralogical characteristics is very timely.
The volume is written by subject experts, and the bibliography is up to date and relevant. Such a globally diverse group of authors bring data and case studies not necessarily readily accessible by those in the English-speaking world. Beyond the USA and Australia, case studies from Brazil, China, Mongolia and India provide a broad geographical coverage of alkaline rocks and papers are evenly split between petrogenetic and geodynamic studies and economic geology.
I found the volume largely free of typographic errors and the diagrams easy to understand. Indeed, the authors have produced an admirable publication, simple to read from cover-to-cover. This excellent addition to the Special Publications series is sure to interest anyone involved in economic geology and mineral exploration.
Review by Rob Bowell
DETAILS
BY: Rohit Pandey et al. (2025) Geological Society of London Special Publication 551, 416 pp.
ISBN: 9781786206275
PRICE: £161 (ebook) lyellcollection.org
