The Polino carbonatite consists of two small tuffisite-filled diatremes, the larger of which is about 40 m in diameter. They outcrop along the bottom of a small stream. The filling is a chaotic breccia, or tuffisite, consisting of angular blocks of carbonatite and concentric carbonatite lapilli with a few fragments of country rock limestone, set in a finer matrix of the same rock types. The breccia is similar in appearance to the coarser breccias at San Venanzo but lacks melilitite.
Immediately to the northeast of the Polino diatremes are leucite-bearing phonolitic pyroclastic deposits that extend over about 1 km2. The source of these pyroclastic rocks has not been identified, but fragments of the phonolite have been recognised in the rocks at Polino. 39Ar-40Ar dating of sanidine in the phonolites gave an age of about 400 ka whereas phlogopite in the carbonatite gave only 246 +/- 14 ka.
Ref.:
- Stoppa, F., and Woolley, A.R. (1997): The Italian carbonatites: field occurrence, petrology and regional significance. Mineralogy and Petrology 59, 43-67.
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