A preliminary report on the mineralogy of the Tundulu and Songwe carbonatite complexes, Malawi

A group of samples from the Tundulu and Songwe carbonatite complexes in Malawi, supplied by Dr. Appleton, have been studied by various mineralogical techniques. The aim was to characterise them and assess their Usefulness as direct application fertilizers and sources of rare earth metals. A brief summary 9f the results obtained so far is given here and a full report will be made when the work is complete. Polished thin sections were made from 17 samples. These were examined on the optical microscope and 7 were analysed on the electron microprobe. This examination showed that there were three main rock types, apatite rocks, ferruginous carbonatites and calcite carbonatites(sovites) and the following report discusses them under theses broad headings.