Published Paper Details:

ABSTRACT Continental flood basalts are massive volcanic eruptions that accumulate enormous volumes of basaltic rock covering large areas in the order of lacks of square kilometers and attaining thickness of several hundreds of meters and volumes exceeding one million Km3. Rajahmundry Trap Basalt flows are one among such worldwide large continental flood basalts. For the last half a century, it has been an interested topic of research on CFBs for several geoscientists who have contributed voluminous data on basalts. In the present paper an attempt has been made to unearth the probable mode of origin and emplacement of RTB flows that are occurring as discrete out crops at several locations. 28 basalt samples were collected from three basalt flows one lying one the other separated by two intertrappeans and an infratrappean bed at the base of these flows.The samples were analyzed chemically by HR-ICP MassSpectrophotometer for major, minor and trace elements and by XRD powder pattern. Initially these samples were studied under microscope in thin sections for mineral identification. These basalts are very fine grained with occasional phenocrysts of Olivine, Plagioclase and Clinopyroxenes and fine granules of these and many other minerals admixed with cryptocrystalline and glassy matrix. From the data derived from, optical, XRD and analytical procedures appropriate conclusions have been drawn.