Volcanic rocks, dredged from depths greater than 1000 m on the Galapagos spreading center, show extreme chemical diversity, including rhyodacites, andesite, ferro-basalts, and low-K oceanic tholeiite. All samples have fresh glassy margins. The ferro-basalts contain up to 18.5% total iron as FeO and up to 3.75% TiO2, while the oceanic tholeiites are as low as 0.02% K2O. The ferro-basalts correlate with the previously proposed zone of high magnetic anomaly amplitudes which flank the Galapagos hot spot, and are consistent with a genesis by shallow fractional crystallization.

From 1983 until 1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions. At the time it was the most extended data compilation on ferromanganese deposits world wide. Initially published in a proprietary format incompatible with present day standards it was jointly decided by AWI and NOAA to transcribe this legacy data into PANGAEA. This transfer is augmented by a careful checking of the original sources when available and the encoding of ancillary information (sample description, method of analysis...) not present in the NOAA-MMS database.

Supplement to: Byerly, Gary R; Melson, William G; Vogt, Peter R (1976): Rhyodacites, andesites, ferro-basalts and ocean tholeiites from the galapagos spreading center. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 30(2), 215-221