24 Undergraduate Research Posters

This poster session highlights geoscience research conducted and presented by undergraduate students. Abstracts must be written by students (but may include non-student co-authors). Research topics may include any area of the earth sciences.

Thursday, 23 April 2026
8:00 AM - 5:30 PM
LMH, 5th Floor Chapel

Mineralogical Characterization of the Peralkaline System at Sierra La Vasca, Coahuila

Paper number: 24-8
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:15 AM – 8:15 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Sierra La Vasca alkaline complex is located in northeastern Mexico, in the state of Coahuila. Recently, this Eocene complex has been described as an uncommon member of the Eastern Mexican Alkaline Province, associated with the continuation of the Trans-Pecos Magmatic Province tectonically related to the rollback of the Farallon Plate subduction along with asthenospheric upwelling and melting of the metasomatized lithospheric mantle.

Petrologically, the complex can be divided into metaluminous and peralkaline rocks. The peralkaline group is associated with nepheline syenites containing agpaitic minerals, which indicate conditions enriched in Na, K in relation to Al, such as the eudialite group, feldspathoids and zirconsilicates, which are emplaced in the form of dikes, sills and stocks and generate a sodic-potassic alteration as a late magmatic process and hydrothermal events associated with the formation of garnet-wollastonite skarn.

These rocks exhibit an anomalous concentration of strategic elements such as REE, Nb, Y and Zr, which could be determined from techniques such as electron microprobe (EMPA), and SEM-EDS, and are mainly hosted in minerals such as REE fluorocarbonates, titanite, eudialite group and zirconsilicates. The mineral association was identified and characterized by UV light- fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy, near-infrared spectroscopy (SWIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).

Globally, alkaline rocks complexes have great economic and scientific relevance due to their wide mineralogical diversity and as a source of strategic metals (e.g., the Ilímaussaq complex in Greenland, and the Khibina and Lovozero complexes in Russia). In Mexico, the Sierra La Vasca deposit represents a geological mining opportunity for REE, Zr, and Nb.

 

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 3

doi: 10.1130/abs/2026CD-410922

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