a somewhat provincial, rustic system of naming after French villages nearby were found the first described examples of various species of lamprophyre (Vosges being the prime example). Modern nomenclature has been derived from an attempt to constrain some genetic parameters of lamprophyre genesis. This has, by and large, dispensed with the previous provincial names of lamprophyre species, in favor of a mineralogical name. The old names are still used for convenience. Vogesite Vogesite was first described from the Vosges mountains, France, where rocks of this type (actually, minette) were described in the early 20th century. Minette A historical view of minette was provided by Johannsen (1937). He wrote that the name was " ... used by the miners in the Vosges apparently for oolitic or granular iron ore, and possibly derived from the valley of Minkette, where it occurs...." Examples include minettes in the Navajo Volcanic Field (e.g. dikes near Shiprock and Mitten Rock, NM) of the Colorado Plateau and in the Mexican Volcanic Belt. Kersantite Kersantite is named after the village of Kersanton, Brittany, France, where the rock was first identified. An obsolete name for kersantite is kersanton. Distribution Lamprophyres are usually associated with voluminous granodiorite intrusive episodes. They occur as marginal facies to some granites, though usually as dikes and sills marginal to and crosscutting the granites and diorites. In other districts where granites are abundant no rocks of this class are known. It is rare to find only one member of the group present, but minettes, vogesites, kersantites, etc., all appear and there are usually transitional forms. Lamprophyres are also known to be spatially and temporally associated with gold mineralisation, for example orogenic gold deposits. Rock (1991) considered lamprophyres to be possible source rocks for the gold, but this view is not generally supported. The more reasonable explanation for the correlation is that lamprophyres, representing "wet" melts of the asthenosphere and mantle, correlate with a period of high fluid flow from the mantle through the crust, during subduction-related metamorphism, which drives gold mineralisation. Non-melilitic lamprophyres are found in many districts where granites and diorites occur, such as the Scottish Highlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland; the Lake District of northwest England; Ireland; the Vosges Mountains of France; the Black Forest and Harz mountain regions of Germany; Mascota, Mexico; Jamaica and in certain locations of British Columbia, Canada. References Tappe, S., Foley, S.F., Jenner, G.A. and Kjarsgaard, B.A.,