Abstract:
The Kulf Amba area is situated in the Northwestern Ethiopian plateau. Most studies in the
plateau volcanic rocks have been carried out at a regional scale and focused on basalt and very
little are known about the petrogenetic relationship of both the mafic and felsic volcanic rocks.
Thus, the main objective of this research study is to determine the geology and geochemical
characteristics of Oligocene volcanic rocks of the Kulf Amba area. Field investigation,
petrographic description and geochemical study have been used to attain the objectives. The
main volcanic products identified in the study area are basalt, volcanic glass, rhyolitic
ignimbrite, rhyolite and tuff. The basalts are characterized by aphanitic, porphyritic and
Glomirophyric texture with phenocrysts of olivine, clinopyroxene, Ca-rich plagioclase and Fe-Ti
oxide whereas, the felsic rocks are characterized by phyric, porphyritic and glassy texture with
phenocryst assemblage of alkali feldspar, quartz and Fe-Ti oxides. The geochemical analysis
indicates the Kulf Amba volcanic rocks are bimodal in composition, with the absence of
intermediate rocks. The mafic rocks are transitional to tholeiitic ultra titaniferous (HT2) basalt
with major and trace element concentration nearly similar to Northwestern Ethiopian high-Ti
(HT2) basalts but, the felsic rocks are dominantly peralkaline comendite with minor pantellerite.
The chondrite normalized rare earth element (REE) patterns of the mafic rocks show enriched
LREE and depleted HREE without Eu negative anomaly, indicating little or absence of
plagioclase fractionation but, the felsic rocks show enriched LREE and flat HREE with variable
negative Eu anomaly, indicating fractionation of plagioclase during their evolutions. More or
less constant ratios of Zr/Hf (37.53-45.08) and Nb/Ta (17.29-23.67) in both mafic and felsic
rocks suggest fractional crystallization is a dominant process with little crustal contamination.
Primitive-mantle normalized multi-element diagrams of the mafic rocks are characterized by
depletion of HREE and enrichment of LREE, indicating the presence of garnet in the source and
modeled results for melting using Sm/Yb vs. La/Sm indicates a low degree of partial melting of a
source with garnet. Further, the primitive mantle normalized multi-element variation patterns of
the mafic volcanic rocks display a negative anomaly of K, indicating the presence of phlogopite
in the mantle source and considered as an indicator for mixing of different mantle sources for
their genesis and the basalts are formed in the within plate tectonic setting.
Key words: Fractional crystallization, Crustal contamination, Petrogenesis, Bimodal volcanism