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A large proportion of ores in magmatic sulfide deposits consist of mixtures of cumulus silicate minerals, sulfide liquid, and silicate melt, with characteristic textural relationships that provide essential clues to their origin. Within silicate-sulfide cumulates, there is a range of sulfide abundance in magmatic-textured silicate-sulfide ores between ores with up to about five modal percent sulfides, called \"disseminated ores,\" and \"net-textured\" (or \"matrix\") ores containing about 30 to 70 modal percent sulfide forming continuous networks enclosing cumulus silicates. Disseminated ores in cumulates have various textural types relating to the presence or absence of trapped interstitial silicate melt and (rarely) vapor bubbles. Spherical or oblate spherical globules with smooth menisci, as in the Black Swan disseminated ores, are associated with silicate-filled cavities interpreted as amygdales or segregation vesicles. More irregular globules lacking internal differentiation and having partially facetted margins are interpreted as entrainment of previously segregated, partially solidified sulfide. There is a textural continuum between various types of disseminated and net-textured ores, intermediate types commonly taking the form of \"patchy net-textured ores\" containing sulfide-rich and sulfide-poor domains at centimeter to decimeter scale. These textures are ascribed primarily to the process of sulfide percolation, itself triggered by the process of competitive wetting whereby the silicate melt preferentially wets silicate crystal surfaces. The process is self-reinforcing as sulfide migration causes sulfide networks to grow by coalescence, with a larger rise height and hence a greater gravitational driving force for percolation and silicate melt displacement. Many of the textural variants catalogued here, including poikilitic or leopard-textured ores, can be explained in these terms. Additional complexity is added by factors such as the presence of oikocrysts and segregation of sulfide liquid during strain-rate dependent thixotropic behavior of partially consolidated cumulates. Integrated textural and geochemical studies are critical to full understanding of ore-forming systems.

South China has been considered as part of the Rodinian supercontinent during Neoproterozoic time, although its paleogeographic position within this supercontinent is still a matter of debate. The Wangjiangshan and Bijigou complexes along the northern margin of South China are among the largest mafic intrusions in China. New SHRIMP zircon U-Pb results indicate that these two intrusions have crystallization ages of 820 Ma and 780 Ma, respectively. Enrichment of large ion lithophile and light rare earth elements and depletion of high field-strength elements in these intrusions suggest derivation from an active arc along a continental margin. This interpretation of these intrusions as part of a continental arc assemblage is in contrast with the previous view that they were products of a Neoproterozoic mantle plume that initiated the breakup of Rodinia. The presence of a Neoproterozoic magmatic arc suggests that Rodinian oceanic lithosphere was subducted beneath the (present) northern margin of South China and therefore that South China flanked the Rodinian ocean.

Ore-forming hydrothermal fluids react differently with different country rocks, but few studies have applied this knowledge with the specific goal of expanding the size of hydrothermal footprints in mineral exploration. To develop this concept, 122 metamorphosed mafic dykes from the world-class Canadian Malartic gold district (18.6 Moz Au) were sampled and analyzed for mineralogy, physical properties, and lithogeochemistry (partial and total digestion). The mafic dykes intrude mainly metasedimentary rocks, post-date D1 deformation, and cross-cut early-D2 quartz monzodiorite intrusions, but they were deformed and altered during D2 deformation, mineralization, and metamorphism. They can be subdivided into three groups: Group 1 dykes are least-altered, characterized by amphibole-rich regional metamorphic assemblages and distributed throughout the Pontiac Subprovince. Group 2 and 3 dykes underwent ore-related hydrothermal biotite–calcite–pyrite alteration and are associated with density- and volume-adjusted concentration gains of over 100% in Au–W–Te–C–S–Ag–Cs–Mo–Cu–K–Rb–Se–U–Pb–Ba–F–Bi–Sn. They define a metasomatic footprint up to 6 km away from the deposit toward the SE and up to 2 km away from the deposit toward the SW. Fifty-eight variables that define halos around the Canadian Malartic deposit have been identified and integrated using principal component analysis. PC1 explains 30% of the variance, separates least-mobile elements from ore-related elements, and is interpreted to reflect the ore-forming alteration process. PC2 and PC3 represent igneous processes. PC4 highlights the calcite–pyrite and biotite alteration. Spatial variations of the modal abundances of amphibole, biotite, calcite, and pyrite are the simplest expression of the metasomatic footprint, and they can easily be documented during exploration at the camp scale.

The archetypical komatiite-hosted Alexo Ni–Cu–(PGE) deposit occurs in the 2,720–2,710-Ma Kidd-Munro Assemblage of the western Abitibi greenstone belt in Dundonald Township, Ontario. Detailed mapping of a 200-m long glacially polished outcrop provides unequivocal evidence that the host komatiite flow thermomechanically eroded footwall andesites: (1) the contact between komatiite and andesite is very sharp but delicately scalloped, marked by a <1-cm-thick selvedge of black aphanitic komatiite and clearly transgresses pillow structures and interpillow breccias in the andesite without any evidence of a regolith, shearing, or folding, producing multiple nested embayments on scales from hundreds of meters to a few centimeters; (2) the andesites have been contact metamorphosed and altered along the entire length of the outcrop and the degree of metamorphism/alteration is thicker and more intense around embayments; (3) xenoliths of andesite in komatiite are more common within embayments; (4) komatiitic dikes penetrate downward into underlying andesites, primarily along the lateral margins of embayments; and (5) many of the dikes and marginal rocks exhibit geochemical evidence of contamination. This physical and geochemical evidence for thermomechanical erosion, combined with S isotopic evidence for a major component of non-magmatic country-rock S in the ores, provides additional support for the roles of thermomechanical erosion and incorporation of country-rock S in the genesis of komatiite-associated Ni–Cu–(PGE) deposits. The detailed mapping also reveals that the stratigraphy of the ore zone is considerably more complex than previously reported, indicating that the sulfides were emplaced in several stages, confirming the dynamic nature of the ore emplacement process in komatiite-associated Ni–Cu–(PGE) deposits.

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The Wengeqi complex in Guyang County, Inner Mongolia, is one of several Pd–Pt-mineralized Paleozoic mafic–ultramafic complexes along the north-central margin of the North China. The complex comprises pyroxenites, biotite pyroxenites, amphibole pyroxenites, gabbros, and amphibolites. Zircons extracted from a pyroxenite yield a U–Pb SHRIMP age of 399 ± 4 Ma. Several 2–6-m wide syngenetic websterite dikes contain 1–3 ppm Pd + Pd and are dominated by pyrite–chalcopyrite–pyrrhotite–magnetite–(pentlandite) assemblages with minor sperrylite, sudburyite, and kotuskite. Textural relationships indicate that pyrite has replaced magmatic chalcopyrite and that magnetite has replaced magmatic pyrrhotite. The mineralization is enriched in Pd–Pt–Cu > Au >> Rh–Ir–Os–Ni > Ru, similar to other occurrences of hydrothermally modified magmatic mineralization, but very different from the much less fractionated compositions of magmatic PGE mineralization. Textural, mineralogical, and geochemical relationships are consistent with alteration of an original magmatic Fe–Ni–Cu sulfide assemblage by a S-rich oxidizing high-temperature (deuteric) hydrothermal fluid.

The Garson Ni–Cu–platinum group element deposit is a deformed, overturned, low Ni tenor contact-type deposit along the contact between the Sudbury Igneous Complex (SIC) and stratigraphically underlying rocks of the Huronian Supergroup in the South Range of the 1.85-Ga Sudbury structure. The ore bodies are coincident with steeply south-dipping, north-over-south D 1 shear zones, which imbricated the SIC, its ore zones, and underlying Huronian rocks during mid-amphibolite facies metamorphism. The shear zones were reactivated as south-over-north, reverse shear zones during D 2 at mid-greenschist facies metamorphism. Syn-D 2 metamorphic titanite yields an age of 1,849 ± 6 Ma, suggesting that D 1 and D 2 occurred immediately after crystallization of the SIC during the Penokean Orogeny. The ore bodies plunge steeply to the south parallel to colinear L 1 and L 2 mineral lineations, indicating that the geometry of the ore bodies are strongly controlled by D 1 and D 2 . Sulfide mineralization consists of breccia ores, with minor disseminated sulfides hosted in norite, and syn-D 2 quartz–calcite–sulfide veins. Mobilization by ductile plastic flow was the dominant mechanism of sulfide/metal mobilization during D 1 and D 2 , with additional minor hydrothermal mobilization of Cu, Fe, and Ni by hydrothermal fluids during D 2 . Metamorphic pentlandite overgrows a S 1 ferrotschermakite foliation in D 1 deformed ore zones. Pentlandite was exsolved from recrystallized polygonal pyrrhotite grains after cessation of D 1 , which resulted in randomly distributed large pentlandite grains and randomly oriented pentlandite loops along the grain boundaries of polygonal pyrrhotite within the breccia ore. It also overgrows a S 2 chlorite foliation in D 2 shear zones. Pyrrhotite recrystallized and was flattened during D 2 deformation of breccia ore along narrow shear zones. Exsolution of pentlandite loops along the grain boundaries of these flattened grains produced a pyrrhotite–pentlandite layering that is not observed in D 1 deformed ore zones. The overprinting of the two foliations by pentlandite and exsolution of pentlandite along the grain boundaries of flattened pyrrhotite grains suggest that the Garson ores reverted to a metamorphic monosulfide solid solution at temperatures ranging between 550 and 600 °C during D 1 and continued to deform as a monosulfide solid solution during D 2 .

Virtually all of the economic Ni–Cu–(platinum group element (PGE)) mineralization in the central part of the Cape Smith Belt of New Québec is hosted by thick olivine cumulate units in the Katinniq Member of the Raglan Formation at the base of the 1.9 Ga Chukotat Group. These units transgress underlying gabbros and pelitic metasediments, forming 50–200-m deep and 300–1,000-m wide V-shaped embayments and have been interpreted on the basis of surface geology, deep diamond core drilling, and magnetic inversion models to represent the remnants of one or more large, long (at least 20 km, possibly ≥50 km), sinuous, komatiitic basalt lava channels that formed by thermomechanical erosion of their substrates. We have used a mathematical model to test these hypotheses regarding komatiitic lava emplacement and erosion by lava. Our modeling predicts that an initially 10-m thick komatiitic basalt flow should have flowed turbulently near the vent and should have thermomechanically eroded unconsolidated pelitic sediment during emplacement to reach the observed degree of contamination of ≤10% at distances of ~30–60 km downstream from the source. Furthermore, our models predict that, at these distances downstream, a fully inflated 100-m thick komatiitic basalt flow would have had thermal erosion rates over consolidated gabbroic substrate of ~0.7–1.5 m/day, requiring ~70–140 days to incise a 100-m deep channel, depending on the initial temperature of the lava, the paleoslope, and the initial temperature and solidus temperature of the gabbro. These erosion rates would have been associated with volumetric flow rates of >10 5 –10 6  m 3 /s and eruption volumes of >10 3 –10 4  km 3 . Although these flow rates are orders of magnitude larger than those of most modern terrestrial basaltic flows, they are of the same order as those estimated for the largest terrestrial flood basalt flows and with those inferred for some of the largest extraterrestrial flows. Our predicted flow volumes are also of the same order as those of the largest terrestrial flood basalt units, consistent with the great thickness and widespread distribution of the Chukotat Group. Our modeling of thermomechanical erosion of gabbro by komatiitic basalt results in negligible contamination (<1%), and geochemical studies show that the spatially and petrogenetically related Chukotat basalts are uncontaminated, suggesting that the observed enrichments in U–Th–Light Rare Earth Elements (REE) > Middle REE–Heavy REE > Nb–Ta–Ti represent contamination by underlying Povungnituk semipelites. This result is consistent with present models for the genesis of the Ni–Cu–(PGE) mineralization in the Raglan Formation that involve thermomechanical erosion of unconsolidated, sulfidic semipelitic sediments, and decoupling of the miscible silicate and immiscible sulfide components.

We sampled basaltic lava flows and underlying dacitic tuff deposits in or near lava tubes of the Cave Basalt, Mount St. Helens, Washington to determine whether the Cave Basalt lavas contain geochemical evidence of substrate contamination by lava erosion. The samples were analyzed using a combination of wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The results indicate that the oldest, outer lava tube linings in direct contact with the dacitic substrate are contaminated, whereas the younger, inner lava tube linings are uncontaminated and apparently either more evolved or enriched in residual liquid. The most heavily contaminated lavas occur closer to the vent and in steeper parts of the tube system, and the amount of contamination decreases with increasing distance downstream. These results suggest that erosion by lava and contamination were limited to only the initially emplaced flows and that erosion was localized and enhanced by vigorous laminar flow over steeper slopes. After cooling, the initial Cave Basalt lava flows formed an insulating lining within the tubes that prevented further erosion by later flows. This interpretation is consistent with models of lava erosion that predict higher erosion rates closer to sources and over steeper slopes. A greater abundance of xenoliths and xenocrysts relative to xenomelts in hand samples indicates that mechanical erosion rather than thermal erosion was the dominant erosional process in the Cave Basalt, but further sampling and petrographic analyses must be performed to verify this hypothesis.