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Mt Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain (5895m), is a large, young (<1.6Ma) stratovolcano at the southern end of the East African Rift, in northern Tanzania. Consisting of three distinct volcanic centres, Shira, Mawenzi and Kibo, Shira contains the highest proportion of mafic rocks. Shira samples are strongly silica under-saturated rocks, ranging from picro-basalt, to nephelinite and hawaiite (Mg numbers (Mg #) ranging from 77.2-35.5). Phenocrysts constitute up to 55% of some samples, and include aluminous augite (often containing abundant fluid and/or melt inclusions), olivine (Fo92-Fo49), plagioclase (An75-An42), nepheline (Ne77-Ne68), magnesiochromite and ulvöspinel. Groups identified on the basis of phenocryst assemblages and textures correlate with location. East Shira Hill samples contain olivine and clinopyroxene phenocrysts + microphenocrysts of plagioclase (Group 1), or plagioclase and clinopyroxene phenocrysts + microphenocrysts of olivine (Group 2). Samples with high Mg #'s contain abundant cumulate clinopyroxene and olivine (Fo92-Fo85). Group 3 samples (Shira Ridge) contain nepheline phenocrysts and Group 4 samples (Platzkegel) have distinct intergranular textures. Chondrite normalised REE patterns are steep, with light REE-enrichment up to 400x chondrite. Spider diagrams, normalised to OIB for primitive Shira samples have strong K depletions and Pb enrichments. The source of the Shira volcanic rocks is most likely an amphibole-bearing spinel lherzolite, in which amphibole remains residual. Similarities in spider diagram patterns and trace element ratios suggest a source similar to average OIB. The Shira volcanic centre is a polygenetic volcano, in which multiple small volume, low degree (4-10%) partial melts from a metasomatised subcontinental lithospheric mantle follow pre-existing structural weaknesses, before ponding in the lithosphere. Evolution of these small volume melts is dominated by shallow fractional crystallisation of clinopyroxene, olivine±spinel, with plagioclase also fractionating from Group 4 (Platzkegel) samples. A magma mixing origin is suggested for some samples and supported by complex zonation patterns in major and trace element chemistry of clinopyroxene phenocrysts as well as linear mixing arrays. The Shira volcanic centre has since ceased activity, and collapsed to form the present day Shira Ridge and caldera before being overlain by various Kibo and parasitic lavas to the east and northwest of the Shira region.

Geometries of sills intruded into the lava pile of the Faroe Island Basalt Group (FIBG), which were targeted in this study, were mostly recorded by conventional mapping methods where measured distances and positions were plotted onto accurate topographic maps aided by the use of high-quality photos of relevant outcrops. These data were subsequently used to manually plot 2D profiles along selected tracks and to produce electronic 3D maps using ArcGIS software. The general geometries of the investigated sills, measured at lateral scales ranging from a few metres to a few kilometres and at vertical scales ranging from a few metres to a few hundred metres, differ somewhat from typical sill geometries reported previously for sills intruded into sedimentary successions. The ubiquitous saucer-shapes of the sills from this study, which generally curve upwards in a gradual manner from inner sub-horizontal sections to steeper outer margins, contrast with the common angular transitions from inner sub-horizontal to outer steeper sections of sills reported from sedimentary host-rocks. In this thesis we explore possible alternatives to already existing theories on sill emplacement in sedimentary successions. Major and trace element compositions for samples representing most of the sills exposed in the Faroe Islands have been determined by means of XRF and ICP-MS analyses. Geochemically most of these sills can be grouped into two main categories characterised either by high or by low TiO2 contents. Different sorts/types of metasomatism of source rocks to high-TiO2 versus low-TiO2 sills are indicated by different Nb and Ta anomalies. Modelling by means of REE and other trace elements suggest that much of the compositional differences between these two main categories can be explained by various degrees of partial melting of broadly similar mantle sources. Additional fractionation and accumulation of plagioclase modified some of the melts that gave rise to the actual sills. The initial partial melting event probably occurred at depths slightly shallower than the lower limit of the garnet stability field at ~85 km while plagioclase crystallisation/accumulation most likely occurred at depths shallower than ~18 km. Isotopic compositions may point to very slight contamination of some sills with crustal material.

The Station Creek Igneous Complex (SCIC) is one of the largest Middle-Late Triassic plutonic bodies in the northern New England Orogen of Eastern Australia. The igneous complex comprises of five plutons - the Woonga Granodiorite (237 Ma), Woolooga Granodiorite (234 Ma), Rush Creek Granodiorites (231 Ma) and Gibraltar Quartz Monzodiorite and Mount Mucki Diorite (227 Ma respectively), emplaced as high-level or epizonal bodies within the Devonian-Carboniferous subduction complex that resulted from a westward subduction along the east Australian margin. Composition of the SCIC ranges from monzogabbro to monzogranite, and includes diorite, monzodiorite, quartz monzodiorite and granodiorite. The SCIC has the typical I-type granitoid mineralogy, geochemistry and isotopic compositions. Its geochemistry is characteristics of continental arc magma, and has a depleted-upper mantle signature with up to 14 wt% supracrustal components (87Sr/86Srinitial = 0.70312 to 0.70391; Nd = +1.35 to +4.9; high CaO, Sr, MgO; and low Ni, Cr, Ba, Rb, Zr, Nb, Ga and Y). The SCIC (SiO2 47%-76%) has similar Nd and Sr isotopic values to island-arc and continentalised island-arc basalts, which suggests major involvement of upper mantle sourced melts in its petrogenesis. SCIC comprises of two geochemical groups - the Woolooga-Rush Greek Granodiorite group (W-RC) and the Mount Mucki Diorite-Gibraltar Quartz Monzodiorite group (MMD-GQM). The W-RC Group is high-potassium, calc-alkalic and metaluminous, whereas the MMD-GQM Group is medium to high potassium, transitional calc-alkalic to tholeiitic and metaluminous. The two geochemical groups of the SCIC magmas are generated from at least two distinct sources - an isotopically evolved Neoproterozoic mantle-derived source with greater supracrustal component (10-14 wt%), and an isotopically primitive mafic source with upper mantle affinity. Petrogenetic modeling using both major and trace elements established that the variations within respective geochemical group resulted from fractional crystallisation of clinopyroxene, amphibole and plagioclase from mafic magma, and late fractionation of alkalic and albitic plagioclase in the more evolved magma. Volcanic rocks associated with SCIC are the North Arm Volcanics (232 Ma), and the Neara Volcanics (241-242 Ma) of the Toogoolawah Group. The major and trace element geochemistry of the North Arm Volcanics is similar to the SCIC, suggesting possible co-magmatic relationship between the SCIC and the volcanic rock. The age of the North Arm Volcanics matches the age of the fractionated Rush Creek Granodiorite, and xenoliths of the pluton are found within epiclastic flows of the volcanic unit. The Neara Volcanics (87Sr/86Sr= 0.70152-0.70330, 143Nd/144Nd = 0.51253-0.51259) differs isotopically from the SCIC, indicating a source region within the HIMU mantle reservoir (commonly associated with contaminated upper mantle by altered oceanic crust). The Neara Volcanics is not co-magmatic to the SCIC and is derived from partial melting upper-mantle with additional components from the subducting oceanic plate. The high levels emplacement of an isotopically primitive mantle-derived magma of the SCIC suggest periods of extension during the waning stage of convergence associated with the Hunter Bowen Orogeny in the northern New England Orogen. The geochemical change between 237 to 227 Ma from a depleted-mantle source with diminishing crustal components, to depleted-mantle fractionate, reflects a fundamental change in the source region that can be related to the tectonic styles. The decreasing amount of supracrustal component suggests either thinning of the subduction complex due to crustal attenuation, leading to the late Triassic extension that enables mantle melts to reach subcrustal levels.