One of the most famous of the more than 100 pegmatites in the Sahatany Pegmatite Field. It is situated in a ravine about 2 km W of the village Ihasy in the Sahatany Valley, about 25 km SW of the town Antsirabe. It is sometimes labeled as "Manjaka, Mt. Ibity". Mt. Ibity or the Ibity Massif is forming the eastern border of the Sahatany Pegmatite Field. A. Lacroix (1911) erroneously called the locality "Ampakita" (Bulletin de la Société francaise de Minéralogie, 34, 131-139). The locals now refer to the site as "Sahananana". A complex LCT pegmatite is hosted in a marble and has been worked for gem tourmaline since the beginning of the 20th century. The pegmatite body is now exhausted. A large number of minerals has been found, mostly in the many miarolitic cavities in the pegmatite.
References:
- Lacroix, A. (1912): "Sur quelques minéraux des pegmatites du Vakinankaratra (Madagascar), Soc. franc.min 35 , 76-78
- Lacroix, A. (1922): Minéralogie de Madagascar. Tome I. Paris. 624 pp
- Behier, J (1953): Les mineraux de la pegmatite de Manjaka, Vallee de la Sahatany.Arch.Serv.Geol.Mad. A.581
- Frondel, C. & Ito, J. (1965): Composition of Rhodizite. Tschermaks mineralogische und petrographische Mitteilungen 10, (1-4):409-412 [Chemical analysis of rhodizite from Manjaka]
- Ranorosoa, N (1986): Etude mineralogique des pegmatites du champ de la Sahatany, Madagascar. These de doctorat de L'Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse
