A Record Of Assimilation Preserved By Exotic Minerals In The Lowermost Platinum-Group Element Deposit Of The Bushveld Complex: The Volspruit Sulphide Zone

Authors

Dominique Tanner, University of WollongongFollow
Iain McDonald, Cardiff University
R E. Harmer, Rhodes University
Duncan Muir, Cardiff University
Hannah S.R Hughes, University of Exeter, University of The Witwatersrand

RIS ID

132062

Publication Details

Tanner, D., McDonald, I., Harmer, R. E (Jock)., Muir, D. D. & Hughes, H. S.R. (2019). A Record Of Assimilation Preserved By Exotic Minerals In The Lowermost Platinum-Group Element Deposit Of The Bushveld Complex: The Volspruit Sulphide Zone. Lithos, 324-325 584-608.

Abstract

Low-grade platinum-group element mineralisation in the Volspruit Sulphide Zone is sulphide-poor (%), distributed over a ~60 m-thick horizon in the lowermost cumulates of the northern limb of the Bushveld Complex. Unlike any other platinum-group element (PGE) deposit of the Bushveld Complex, the Volspruit Sulphide Zone is hosted exclusively within harzburgitic and dunitic cumulates in the Lower Zone of the Rustenburg Layered Suite. Here, we present a petrological investigation on the distribution of PGEs and chalcophile metals in mineralised pyroxenite cumulates from the Volspruit Sulphide Zone, to determine the origin of the PGE mineralisation in ultramafic cumulates and evaluate whether Volspruit-style mineralisation could occur in the stratigraphically lowest, ultramafic portions of other layered intrusions.