Alkaline Rocks and Carbonatites of the World. Part 2. Former USSR / Щелочные породы и карбонатиты мира. Часть 2. Бывший СССР

Although the great diversity of alkaline rocks, with their relatively exotic mineralogies, has always attracted the interest of petrologists, as have the more recently defined carbonatites, it could be argued that little progress has been made over the past so years towards formulating a comprehensive petrogenesis of these rocks. It could also be maintained that as the alkaline varieties have the most extreme compositions of all igneous rocks, so an understanding of their genesis is essential if we are to understand fully the workings of the solid earth, while a knowledge of the most extreme products of differentiation must inevitably cast light on rocks of less extreme compositions. The importance of academic research on these rocks is thus clear. There is, however, also a commercial aspect, in so far as they are an increasingly important source of a wide range of industrial raw materials, which has stimulated not only programmes to discover more occurrences, but also to investigate in greater detail those already known