• The Journal of the Petrological Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.17-28
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• 2002

This study has been designed to elucidate the petrography and geochemical characteristics of the Taeheung-ri lava in southeastern Jeju Island. The lava is divided into the alkaline basalt and tholeiitic basalt. More than 4 layers of tholeiitic basalt are overlain by layers of alkaline basalt. Compared with alkaline basalt, tholeiitic basalt has lower contents of $K_2O$, $P_2O_5$, Ba and Ta, but slight higher contents of $SiO_2$ and CaO. The contents of Ba and Rb of all basalts are enriched, but those of Ni and Cr are depleted compared with primitive mantle compositions. All basalts show inclined chondrite-normalized REE patterns with LREE enriched more than HREE and alkaline basalt has relatively higher. The basalts of this study area are plotted in the field of within plate basalt on the tectonomagmatic discrimination diagram. Tholeiitic basalt has higher ratios of Zr/Nb, Y/Nb, and $Al_2O_3/P_2O_5$ than alkaline basalt. Both tholeiitic and alkaline basalt are similar in their K/Ba ratios. The geochemical data suggest that the parental magma of both basalts might be produced by different degrees of partial melting of similar source mantle. The tholeiitic basalt formed by higher degree of partial melting than the alkaline basalt.