2003 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 51-67
Chichijima, located in Ogasawara (Bonin) arc, Japan has been known as the type locality of boninite. Meanwhile, extremely evolved volcanics (SiO2>70 wt%) also occur together with the high-magnesian andesites. The evolved rocks have been considered as the products of differentiation from the boninitic parental magma by fractional crystallization processes. The differentiation processes are considered to produce low-Ca boninite through bronzite-andesite, dacite, quartz-dacite and quartz-rhyolite. Some of the quartz-dacites, however, would not be necessarily regarded as differentiates from the dacite magma. Quartz-dacites are enriched in SiO2 for the fractional crystallization products from dacite. Some quartz-dacites show mineralogical evidences of magma mixing, while such features can not be observed in the dacites. Quartz phenocrysts in the silica rich quartz-rhyolite exhibit euhedral form, but quartz-dacites have corroded quartz phenocrysts. The compositions of mafic pyroxene phenocrysts in quartz-dacites are similar to those in bronzite-andesites. Groundmass pyroxenes in some quartz-dacites include orthopyroxene and augite. In contrast, pigeonite and augite are ubiquitous groundmass pyroxenes in the quartz-free dacites. These chemical and petrographical features imply that the quartz-dacites have calc-alkalic affinities, whereas the dacites have tholeiitic affinities. The tholeiitic trend of the dacites might be formed by fractional crystallization under low fO2 conditions, judging from the crystallization of Fe-rich pigeonite phenocrysts, and the quartz-rhyolite would be produced from the dacite magma by fractional crystallization in the tholeiite suite. Mixing calculations between bronzite-andesite and quartz-rhyolite reproduce the observed chemical variations of quartz-dacites. Therefore, calc-alkalic trend of the quartz-dacites might be formed by internal magma mixing between the bronzite-andesite magma and the quartz-rhyolite magma.
