Eight samples (seven volcanic rocks and one quartz sandstone) have been dredged from the Funk Seamount, 60 km NW of Marion Island in the southwest Indian Ocean (lat. 46° 15′S, long. 37° 20′ E). The volcanic rocks are fine-grained vesicular basanitoids and glass-rich volcanic breccias geochemically similar to the Marion Island lavas. Lavas and breccias contain a suite of megacryst minerals and of small polymineralic xenoliths, in both of which kaersutite is a prominent constituent.

The megacryst suite comprises large unzoned single grains of kaersutite, plagioclase, pyroxene, magnetite and ilmenite, all showing textural evidence of resorption/reaction with the basanitoid host. The megacrysts have a limited range of compositions except for the plagioclase which ranges from oligoclase to labradorite.

The small (2 mm to ∼ 3 cm) xenoliths are mostly two-pyroxene amphibole assemblages with or without olivine, magnetite, ilmenite, plagioclase and apatite. The xenoliths show some evidence of reaction with the basanitoid host and most have undergone recrystallization and/or localised decompression melting.

Xenolith and megacryst assemblages are interpreted as being associated with the formation and partial crystallization of a hydrous basanitoid melt at depth.