The rocky coast of the Punta di Valitone cape offer threedimensional exposures of Mg-K-rich granitoids with magmatic foliation and numerous mafic enclaves.
The Punta di Valitone cape is located in the northwest of the Marine de Davia peninsula, ca. 5 km west of Ile-Rousse. The coastal erosion created large and fresh outcrops of a mesocratic granitoid. The rock is composed of large pink K-feldspar crystals within a finer matrix of biotite, quartz, feldspar and hornblende. Such granitoids rich in Mg and K are sometimes called Durbachites; they are typical for the U1 magmatic stage in Variscan Corsica. The large feldspar phenocrysts are aligned more or less parallel to each other, thus defining a magmatic foliation generated by the flow of the magma. The rock also contains many mafic enclaves of several cm- to dm-size and rather thin, more felsic dykes or veins that are often weathered out a bit. Weathering affected the granitoid preferentially along the widely-spaced fracture network, which gave rise to the rounded blocky shape of the rocks (“woolsack weathering”).
When walking along the coast for 100-200 m towards the northeast, the contact zone of the Durbachites to the leucogranite of Ile-Rousse can be observed. On the outcrop scale, the contact is diffuse and highly irregular, indicating that the rocks came into contact when they were still partially molten. In addition, in the contact region, the Durbachites are partially altered to a dark green rock rich in chlorite and epidote.