(Grotta del Cervo, Pietrasecca, Carsoli, L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italia)
Grotta del Cervo is located in a small graben structure along a system of normal fault. The occurrence consists of reworked tuff containing fresh blocks of lava which fill up some sections of a karst cave. Age of igneous activity ranges between 0.8 and 0.3 My.
Lava blocks are formed principally by large xls of phlogopite, leucite, hauyne and clinopyroxene in a fine groundmass of melanite, apatite, spinel and kalsilite. Tuff contains variable amounts of the same minerals observed in the lava blocks plus secondary calcite.
Refs.:
-Comodi, P., Liu, Y., Stoppa, F., & Woolley, A. (1999). A multi-method analysis of Si-, S- and REE-rich apatite from a new find of kalsilite-bearing leucitite (Abruzzi, Italy). Mineralogical Magazine, 63: 661-672.
-Stoppa, F., Woolley, A. R., & Cundari, A. (2002). Extension of the melilite-carbonatite province in the Appennines of Italy: the kamafugite of Grotta del Cervo, Abruzzo. Mineralogical Magazine, 66 (4): 555-574.
