Seventeen basalt grindstone fragments from central Jordan's Karak Plateau were studied. Most of these artifacts are vesicular or amygdaloidal with calcite as the dominant mineral filling the voids. The major minerals are olivine (with iddingsite rims), plagioclase, clinopyroxene, magnetite, and apatite. Glass is present in some samples. One basalt fragment is quite different in appearance and composition and may have come from flows closer to the Dead Sea. Grindstone fragment compositions plot in the tephrite‐basanite and basalt fields. A plot of the concentrations of niobium, zirconium, and yttrium reveal that the sample compositions plot in the “within‐plate alkali basalt” and “within‐plate tholeiite” fields. The acquisition of basalts for preparing such implements appears to have been random. Some may have been introduced through trade and migration. Archaeological and environmental studies on the Karak Plateau are urgently needed because Jordan's population growth and economic development are destroying many sites and their environmental contexts. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A series of northeast-trending plutons extending from northeastern Massachusetts to southeastern Maine intruded the metasedimentary rocks of the Merrimack belt. The Early Devonian Dracut, Sweepstakes, Island Pond, Exeter, and Webhannet plutons are metaluminous and, with the exception of the granitic Webhannet pluton, are dominantly mafic to intermediate in composition. The plutons are calc-alkaline in character and have major, minor, and trace element compositions typical of magmas generated at destructive plate margins. These characteristics include mid-to high-K contents, enrichment of LILE, LREE, Ba, and Sr, and negative Nb and Ta anomalies. Whole-rock chemical data indicate that the plutons of the Merrimack belt are similar in every measured geochemical parameter to ca. 400 Ma mafic to intermediate rocks of the New Hampshire Plutonic Suite. These similarities suggest that both groups of plutons were emplaced within the same magmatic arc and belong to the same magmatic suite. A magmatic suite common to both the Merrimack belt and Central Maine terrane suggests that the two lithotectonic zones were proximal to each other at ca. 400 Ma. Trace element differences between Merrimack belt and Sharpners Pond rocks suggest that the Putnam-Nashoba terrane represents a separate arc. Located in the Central Maine terrane of New Hampshire, the Rochester pluton is geochemically distinct from the Siluro-Devonian plutons of the Merrimack belt and New Hampshire Plutonic Suite. The Rochester pluton has alkaline affinities but retains overall calc-alkaline features. High concentrations of incompatible elements (K, Ti, P, Ba, Rb, Zr) in the Rochester pluton are markedly similar to those observed in the 360 Ma Hardwick Tonalite of Massachusetts. The strong geochemical correlation between the Rochester and Hardwick plutons implies derivation from the same magmatic event and a common, Late Devonian origin. We suggest that these plutons may have originated in response to pull-apart rifting related to late-stage Acadian transpression. Une serie de plutons orientee vers le nord-est s'etendant du nord-est du Massachusetts au sud-est du Maine, fait intrusion dans les roches metasedimentaires de la ceinture de Merrimack. Les plutons du Devonien inftrieur Dracut, Sweepstakes, Island Pond, Exeter et Webhannet constituent des intrusions metalumineuses et, mis k part le pluton granitique Webhannet, ils ont une composition en predominance mafique a intermediate. Les plutons ont une conformation calcoalcaline et leur composition du point de vue des principaux elements presents, de ceux presents en quantite restreinte et des elements traces est representative des magmas produits aux fronti6res de plaques destructives. Leurs caracteristiques component notamment une teneur moyenne a elevee en potassium, un enrichissement en LILE, en elements de terres rares ldgeres, en BA et en SR, de meme que des anomalies negatives de Nb et Ta. Les donnees de la roche totale revelent que les plutons de la ceinture de Merrimack sont semblables, sous le rapport de...