30Sep 2017

FIRST EVIDENCE OF MAFIC ROCKS IN THE PRERIF SUB-DOMAIN (EXTERNAL RIF, MOROCCO): CARTOGRAPHY AND PETROGRAPHY.

  • Geodynamics of Old Chains Laboratory, Department of Geology University Hassan II of Casablanca/Faculty of Science Ben M?sik- Casablanca.
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The Rif belt accretionary wedge built mainly during Middle Miocene had closed foredeep-basins and transported various thrust-top basin south- and westward. During Paleogene, early inversion and building of the nappe stack, various upper mantellic and ancient oceanic slices were scraped from a buried old oceanic crust. Then, they were incorporated into the External Rif accretionary prism during subduction processes. The External Domain of the Rif belt has undergone a main shortening, resulting in internal sheet deformations, and subsequent nappe stack. The recent studies cover the Mesorif suture zone and related ?oceanic rocks?, outcropping in the central and eastern Mesorif-Prerif units, highlighted their petrography and preliminary geochemistry. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the mafic rocks that occur in the western part of the Prerif sub-domain. We describe here for the first time geological and petrographical framework of gabbros slivers, basalt and pillow lavas that appear in Ouazzane region. These fine to medium grain sized gabbros display a subophitic to ophitic texture made up of abundant euhedral to subhedral plagioclase, clinopyroxene crystals are subhedral to anhedral that can be very altered and totally replaced by chlorite and opaques, olivine is less abundant with minor biotite. Alteration phases include serpentine-group minerals, chlorite and low-T hydrous Ca-aluminosilicates such as tremolites. The pillow basalts thin sections show a microlitic texture mainly formed of plagioclase laths and some clinopyroxene totally replaced with secondary minerals.

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[A. Rafai and M. Raji. (2017); FIRST EVIDENCE OF MAFIC ROCKS IN THE PRERIF SUB-DOMAIN (EXTERNAL RIF, MOROCCO): CARTOGRAPHY AND PETROGRAPHY. Int. J. of Adv. Res. 5 (Sep). 1597-1610] (ISSN 2320-5407). www.journalijar.com

Aida Rafai
PhD Student

DOI:

Article DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/5483      
DOI URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/5483

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