High-Cr and High-Al Podiform Chromitites,Western China: Relationship to Partial Melting and Melt/Rock Reaction in the Upper Mantle |
| |
| Abstract: | Podiform chromitites include both high-Cr and high-Al varieties with distinctly different geochemical characteristics. A comparison of high-Cr and high-Al deposits in western China has demonstrated that both varieties are magmatic in origin and that chromite compositions reflect the degree of partial melting in the mantle source area. The chromitites of the Sartohay ophiolite of Xinjiang Province have chromites with low Cr numbers (<70) and are hosted in highly depleted harzburgites. In both deposits melt/wall rock interaction has produced highly depleted dunite envelopes around the chromitites. In Sartohay, high-Al magmas reacted with lherzolites to produce high-Al dunites and harzburgites, whereas in Luobusa the reaction between more refractory melts and depleted harzburgites yielded only highly depleted dunite envelopes. This study suggests that high-Al deposits can occur in weakly depleted mantle sequences (lherzolite ophiolite type or transitional type) that are locally depleted by melt/rock reaction in the immediate vicinity of the chromitite pods. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
