The Fen Complex ( no, Fensfeltet) in Nome,

Telemark Telemark is a traditional region, a former county, and a current electoral district in southern Norway. In 2020, Telemark merged with the former county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. Telemark borders the traditional ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

is a region noted for an unusual suite of igneous rocks. Several varieties of

carbonatite Carbonatite () is a type of intrusive or extrusive igneous rock defined by mineralogic composition consisting of greater than 50% carbonate minerals. Carbonatites may be confused with marble and may require geochemical verification. Carbonati ...

are present in the area as well as

lamprophyre Lamprophyres () are uncommon, small-volume ultrapotassic igneous rocks primarily occurring as dikes, lopoliths, laccoliths, stocks, and small intrusions. They are alkaline silica- undersaturated mafic or ultramafic rocks with high magnesium ...

, ijolite and other highly alkalic rocks. It is the type locality for

fenite Fenite is a metasomatic alteration associated particularly with carbonatite intrusions and created, very rarely, by advanced carbon dioxide alteration (carbonation) of felsic and mafic rocks. It is characterised by the presence of alkali feldspar, ...

, a

metasomatic Metasomatism (from the Greek μετά ''metá'' "change" and σῶμα ''sôma'' "body") is the chemical alteration of a rock by hydrothermal and other fluids. It is the replacement of one rock by another of different mineralogical and chemical com ...

rock commonly found around carbonatite and alkali intrusives.http://www.mindat.org/loc-14357.html Mindat location description The Fen Complex is a roughly circular area about three kilometres in diameter. It is located just west of the

Oslo graben The Oslo Graben or Oslo Rift is a graben formed during a geologic rifting event in Permian time, the last phase of the Variscan orogeny. The main graben forming period began in the late Carboniferous, which culminated with rift formation and volcan ...

Radiometric Radiometry is a set of techniques for measuring electromagnetic radiation, including visible light. Radiometric techniques in optics characterize the distribution of the radiation's power in space, as opposed to photometric techniques, which ch ...

age dating on the carbonatites gave an age of 539 +/- 14 Myr. The host rocks for the intrusions are middle Proterozoic

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

s and

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

and the complex was associated with the Cambrian

rift In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-grabe ...

ing of the

craton A craton (, , or ; from grc-gre, κράτος "strength") is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere, which consists of Earth's two topmost layers, the crust and the uppermost mantle. Having often survived cycles of merging an ...

ic rocks.Faure, Gunter (2000) ''Origin of Igneous Rocks'', Springer, pp. 319-321 The complex is a protected location because of the rare minerals and rock types found there. The rocks were first described by Waldemar Christofer Brøgger in 1921.

References

Carbonatite occurrences Geography of Telemark Petrology Geology of Norway Cambrian magmatism {{Telemark-geo-stub

See also

References