1 Alkaline magmas in zones of continental convergence: 2 The Tezhsar volcano-intrusive ring complex, Armenia 3 4 Krzysztof Sokół1,2, Ralf Halama1*, Khachatur Meliksetian3, Ivan 5 P. Savov4, Gevorg Navasardyan3, Masafumi Sudo5 6 7 1 School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, Keele University, Keele, ST5 5BG, 8 United Kingdom 9 2 (Present address) School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews, 10 St Andrews, KY16 9AL, United Kingdom 11 3 Institute of Geological Sciences, Armenian National Academy of Sciences, 24a Marshal 12 Baghramian Avenue, 0019, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia 13 4 School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom 14 5 Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht- 15 Str. 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany 16 17 * Corresponding author contact information: 18 Ralf Halama 19 School of Geography, Geology and the Environment 20 Keele University 21 Keele, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom 22 E-mail:
[email protected] 23 Phone: +44 (0) 1782 7 34960 1 24 Abstract 25 Alkaline igneous rocks are relatively rare in settings of tectonic convergence and little 26 is known about their petrogenesis in these settings. This study aims to contribute to a 27 better understanding of the formation of alkaline igneous rocks by an investigation of the 28 Tezhsar volcano-intrusive alkaline ring complex (TAC) in the Armenian Lesser Caucasus, 29 which is located between the converging Eurasian and Arabian plates. We present new 30 petrological, geochemical and Sr-Nd isotope data for the TAC to constrain magma genesis 31 and magma source characteristics.