Mafic rocks from the Bamenda mountains have various major element compositions, and in the Na₂O + K₂O vs. SiO₂ diagram [9], range from basalts to mugearites (Fig. 2). Some samples have low silica contents and plot in the basanite field. All of the samples have alkaline affinity, but the series (including felsic rocks) is clearly discontinuous between mugearites and trachytes (Fig. 2). Basanites contain large olivine and clinopyroxene phenocrysts (up to 2 mm). Nepheline is sometimes present in the mesostase, associated with plagioclase, clinopyroxene and Fe-Ti oxides. The most mafic rocks contain mainly olivine and clinopyroxene phenocrysts, while in the mugearites plagioclase phenocrysts are more abundant.

Ten samples have been dated by the K-Ar method at CRPG in Nancy [19] or at the University of Queensland in Australia. The data are presented in the Table 1. The ages range from 17.6 Ma to Present. Even if these ages are not representative of the whole volcanic province, they show that mafic volcanism exists over a long period of time and is partly coeval to the felsic volcanism (from 12 to 27 Ma, [8]). However, very recent ages obtained on some mafic rocks have not been found among the felsic ones. The age of the mafic volcanism of the Bamenda area is consistent with ages measured for the volcanism of the other volcanic provinces from the Oku massif to the north to the still active Mount Cameroon to the south [3]. Consequently, volcanism in the Bamenda volcanic province exists over a more than 25 Myr period, without any spatial evolution.

Major and trace element whole rock analyses have been obtained by ICP-AES and ICP-MS, respectively, at the CRPG in Nancy. Sr and Nd isotopes were analyzed by TIMS at the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France, while Pb isotopic ratios have been acquired by TIMS at the University of Queensland in Australia. The studied mafic rocks have silica contents ranging from 41 to 52%, with MgO ranging from 2.5 to 11.3%. When compiled together with the previously studied felsic rocks of the same volcanic province [8], the range in major element composition is consistent with a fractional crystallization process accounting for the evolution from the most mafic rocks to the more differentiated rhyolites. This implies fractionation of olivine, clinopyroxene and Fe-Ti oxides, with late crystallization of plagioclase. However, the size of the Bamenda volcanic province as well as the extension of the volcanic activity over more than 25 Myr and the diversity of the most mafic magmas imply that the samples are nor belonging to a single magmatic series. Their genesis probably involves different partial melting episodes in the mantle, with different melt fractions and possibly different source compositions. Consequently, a detailed study of the fractionation processes between the different samples would have no geological signification.

The mafic rocks from Bamenda have parallel and rather homogeneous REE patterns showing light-REE enrichment, with La_n/Yb_n ratios ranging from 10 to 19, and La concentrations from 100 to 300 times the chondritic value (Fig. 3). Nine samples have a slight positive Eu anomaly but do not show any plagioclase accumulation.

Extended trace element patterns also show some interesting peculiarities. They are rather parallel for all the samples, which all possess a small negative Zr and Hf anomaly (Fig. 4). The mafic rocks have very low Rb concentrations (23 to 51 ppm) and variable but high Ba concentrations (310 to 1350 ppm). Most of the samples showing a positive Eu anomaly also have a positive Sr anomaly and the highest Ba concentrations. As these samples have high Eu, Sr and Ba contents but do not have large amounts of plagioclase phenocrysts, we can consider that these geochemical features are characteristics of the magma itself and not due to mineral accumulation.

Sr, Nd and Pb isotopic ratios obtained on selected samples are presented in Fig. 5. Present-day ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios vary from 0.70307 to 0.70424 while the ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd ratios range from 0.512616 to 0.512911. The Pb isotopic composition covers a large spread of values, with ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb ranging from 17.32 to 20.25. No age correction has been applied for these isotopic compositions, because the age of the samples is not always known and can vary from 0 to more than 20 Ma. The most sensitive ratio to the age correction is for Sr. The maximum value obtained for Rb/Sr in a Bamenda mafic rock is 0.06, which would correspond to a correction of 5 × 10⁻⁵ on the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio for an age of 20 Ma. This correction is not significant and does not change anything about the interpretation which can be addressed from the presented data.

Sr and Nd isotopic values obtained for the Bamenda samples are similar to the previously published values acquired on the mafic rocks from the CVL [2,6,10,11,17] with a few samples having the most radiogenic Sr and the less radiogenic Nd isotopic composition measured along the CVL. Measured Pb isotopic compositions are positively correlated with Nd isotopic ratios and negatively correlated with Sr isotopic values. On one side, these correlations point towards a component with low Pb isotopic values. High Sr isotopic ratios in mafic rocks have been interpreted either as the contamination of mafic magmas by various amounts of continental crust [15–17] or by the involvement of an enriched lithospheric mantle component [14,17].

5.1 Crustal contamination of mafic magmas

Some chemical and isotopic characteristics of volcanic rocks can be acquired by interactions with crustal rocks during magma transfer from the mantle to the surface and also during the storage of these magmas in crustal magma chambers at different crustal levels and their differentiation through crystal fractionation. This contamination has already been observed and characterized for the felsic rocks from the Bamenda volcanic province [8]. The negative correlation between MgO and Sr isotopic ratio (Fig. 6a) and the positive one with Nd isotopic ratio clearly indicates that the isotopic variations observed in the mafic rocks were mainly acquired by interaction with crustal rocks in the course of the differentiation of the magmas. The Sr and Nd isotopic ratios are also well correlated with the La/Nb ratio, consistent with a contamination by a high La/Nb component, typical of rocks from the continental crust (Fig. 6b). This crustal contaminant also has very low Pb isotopic composition (²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb < 17.5; ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁴Pb < 15.4 and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb < 37). This contamination process by a contaminant with low Pb isotopic composition has already been observed in the other volcanic provinces from the CVL [6,17] but not with isotopic values as low as some observed in the Bamenda volcanic rocks. These observations imply that geochemical data from the CVL volcanic rocks must be studied with great care, even for mafic rocks, before being interpreted in terms of mantle source heterogeneities.

One key point of this crustal contamination problem is the strong positive correlation observed between the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotopic ratio and the age of the studied samples (Fig. 7). This correlation also exists for Nd isotopic composition as well as for the La/Nb ratio. The oldest rocks have the highest Sr isotopic compositions, the lowest Nd isotopic ratios and the highest values for the La/Nb ratio. These correlations indicate that the crustal contamination process became less and less important through time in the Bamenda province. Different mechanisms can account for this time evolution. The country rocks can become more and more refractory with time and can be isolated from the circulating magmas due to the crystallization of the previous magmas in the conduit, or a change in the extensional regime of the whole area can facilitate the circulation of the magmas through the crust, thus preventing interactions of these magmas with the country rocks. Whatever the reason for this time evolution, this implies that the most recent volcanic rocks of the Bamenda province are the most interesting to study the nature and the composition of their mantle source because they are the less contaminated by the overlying crustal rocks.

5.2 Nature and composition of the mafic magma source

High concentrations in Eu, Sr and Ba in some of the studied samples give insights about the nature and the chemical composition of the mantle source of the volcanism in that area. These high trace element concentrations are correlated neither to the Sr and Nd isotopic compositions of the rocks, nor to the MgO contents or the La/Nb ratio. This means that these high concentrations are not acquired during the crustal contamination process but instead have something to deal with the composition of the source of the magmas. Two series of rocks, one with high Sr contents and another one with low Sr concentrations have already been observed in the mafic rocks from the nearby Bambouto volcanic province [13]. In both volcanic provinces, the existence of these two rocks series with different trace element composition but with similar isotopic ratios imply that two mantle sources with different trace element compositions but similar isotopic compositions have contributed to their genesis. This trace element difference can be attributed to different mineralogies of the source. For the Bambouto volcanic province, the high Sr rock series has been explained by the partial melting of an amphibole-bearing metasomatized mantle source [13]. Such a mantle has already been observed in Cameroon and especially in mantle xenoliths from the Nyos volcano where amphibole-bearing spinel lherzolites have been described [18]. The high Sr and Ba contents of amphiboles in these mantle samples, as well as their low Zr and Hf contents make them potential candidates for the source of the high-Sr mafic magmas (Fig. 8). However, these amphiboles do not show the high Eu content observed in the Bamenda mafic rocks and their participation to the genesis of these magmas do not explain these positive Eu anomalies.

Mafic volcanic rocks ranging from basalts to mugearites were emplaced in the Bamenda volcanic province between 17 and 0 Ma. These rocks are associated with trachytes and rhyolites in the same area and this volcanism covers a period of more than 25 Ma. Differences between the chemical composition of the studied samples are mainly due to crystal fractionation process in magma chambers. However, correlation between differentiation indexes and isotopic and some trace element ratios are consistent with assimilation of crustal material during the differentiation, the oldest rocks being the most contaminated. Some samples show high concentrations in Eu, Sr and Ba, independent from the mineralogy of the rocks and from the contamination processes. This selective trace element enrichment without different Sr, Nd, Pb isotopic compositions indicates a metasomatized amphibole-bearing mantle source or, most probably, the participation of pyroxenites in the genesis of the magmas in the mantle. High Eu, Sr, Ba pyroxenites have been sampled in mantle xenoliths from the Adamaoua province and their trace element and isotopic compositions are consistent with the data obtained on the high-Sr rocks from Bamenda. Mixing of partial melts from these pyroxenites with melts formed from associated spinel or garnet lherzolites can account for the chemistry of the Bamenda mafic rocks. When the melts originate only from mantle peridotites, they do not show this selective enrichment. This peridotite–pyroxenite association in the mantle probably formed during the opening of the South-Atlantic ocean and the emplacement of the St Helena mantle plume. More geochemical information is needed on the most recent volcanic rocks from the Bamenda province to get a better understanding of the mantle processes occurring beneath the CVL.