43 2.

2 Types of magmatic ore deposits

300 60
high-Mg komatiite
250 basalt 50

ppm Cu, ppm Ni/10 in melt

ppb Pt+Pd in melt

200 40
Pt + Pd Ni
150 30

100 20

Cu
50 10

0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Percentage melt of peridotite

Figure 2.12 Calculated concentrations of Ni, Cu and PGEs in different percentage partial
melts of mantle peridotite with 200 ppm S, 2500 ppm Ni, 40 ppm Cu and 5 ppb Pt þ Pd
(Naldrett, 2010). At up to about 12% partial melting some of the sulfide remains in minerals or
in a separate sulfide melt. Sulfide is fully in solution in the silicate melt at higher degrees of
melting. The apparent (batch melt model) partial melt percentages for the generation of
high-magnesium basaltic melts and komatiitic melts are shown.

further melting because of dilution. In contrast, because Ni is partitioned into olivine, the
concentration of Ni in the melt increases progressively with increasing percentages of
partial melting.

(b) Sulfur saturation – formation of immiscible sulfide melt

Sulfide solubility in a silicate melt varies with pressure and temperature, and also with the
chemical parameters of melt, most importantly with silica and FeO content of the melt. So
long as sulfide minerals remain unmelted in the source, the magma is sulfide-saturated at
source. A sulfide-bearing magma will, however, become undersaturated or oversaturated
with respect to a sulfidic phase during magma migration, cooling, crystallisation and
fractionation.
At the temperatures at which ultramafic and mafic magmas crystallise in the crust and
at the Earth’s surface (1100–1600  C), the sulfide phase will be molten or largely molten.
If a mafic magma becomes sulfide-saturated, drops of immiscible sulfide liquid (melt)
form rather than sulfide minerals. Partition coefficients of Ni and Cu between sulfide melt
and mafic silicate melt are measured to be about 200 and 1500, respectively. The values
for PGEs are difficult to measure in experiments but are estimated to be at least an order
of magnitude higher. The chalcophile and siderophile elements (Ni, Cu, Co, PGEs, Au)
can thus be strongly partitioned into a sulfide melt phase. These drops or droplets will be
dense (ρ ~ 4.5 g cm 3, compared to ~ 2.8 g cm 3 for a mafic silicate melt) and will tend to
settle and hence may accumulate.
The partitioning of the chalcophile and siderophile elements into the sulfide melt will
be less efficient if the elements were incorporated into silicate minerals before the
immiscible separation of a sulfide liquid. This effect is likely most significant for Ni,
which is compatible in olivine; olivine contains up to approximately 1% NiO in ultramafic

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44 Magmatic ore deposits

rocks. In addition, the elements need to diffuse to the droplets faster than the droplets
settle or accumulate. Partitioning may thus be influenced by the crystallisation history of
the magma and by its physical behaviour, for instance, how well dispersed the sulfide
droplets are in the silicate melt.

(c) Crystallisation of sulfide melt and partitioning of ore elements

Sulfide melts formed in mafic and ultramafic magmas will crystallise over the tem-
perature range of about 1100  C to 600  C. The sulfide minerals preserved in the ores
are not those that crystallise from a melt but are the products of recrystallisation and
equilibration on cooling from magmatic temperatures down to about 250  C. The
ease of sulfide mineral recrystallisation below magmatic temperatures ensures com-
plete recrystallisation of the high-temperature minerals, which are never preserved in
nature.
Most magmatic sulfide ores are dominated by a common assemblage of ore minerals –
chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), pentlandite (Fe,Ni)9S8, pyrrhotite (Fe1–xS) and lesser magnetite
(Fe3O4). Other Ni and Cu sulfide minerals may additionally be present as minor compon-
ents. Chalcopyrite is for instance a product of recrystallisation of the mineral iss (inter-
mediate solid solution) at temperatures of around 300  C. The high-temperature Fe–Ni
sulfide mineral is the mineral mss (monosulfide solid solution), which at high tempera-
tures is a continuous solid solution between Fe- and Ni-end members. The mineral mss
recrystallises to pentlandite and pyrrhotite at similarly low temperatures. Pyrrhotite is the
dominant iron sulfide mineral rather than pyrite because there is always sufficient Fe in
the sulfide melt to form this Fe-rich mineral. PGEs are rare elements even where concen-
trated in ores, and occur most commonly as assemblages of trace PGE sulfides, alloys,
arsenides and related minerals.

Massive to disseminated Ni–Cu sulfide ores in intrusions formed from mafic magmas
There are numerous important ore bodies of this type in the Sudbury Igneous Complex of
Ontario, Canada (Rousell et al., 2003), which covers about 2000 km2, and in medium-
sized and smaller mafic or layered ultramafic–mafic intrusions down to outcrop areas of
about 2 km2 including at Noril’sk-Talnakh, Russian Federation (Spiridonov, 2010);
Jinchuan, Gansu, China (Chai and Naldrett, 1992); Voisey’s Bay, Newfoundland, Canada
(Naldrett and Li, 2007); Nebo-Babel, Western Australia (Godel et al., 2011); Madziwa,
Zimbabwe (Birch and Buchanan, 1989). Mineralogically similar deposits in mafic bodies
of uncertain origin in high-grade metamorphic belts such as at Selebi-Phikwe, Botswana
(Maier et al., 2008) likely also belong to this deposit type. Many ore-hosting intrusions
are known to be members of major suites of mafic intrusion of regional extent that formed
over short time periods over large areas of continental crust.
The majority of known resources of this style are in multiple ore bodies in two very
large magmatic systems at Sudbury and at Noril’sk-Talnakh.

(a) The petrographic nature of Ni–Cu magmatic sulfide ores in intrusions

The ores at the known major deposits share many chemical and mineralogical common-
alities. Nickel and copper have approximately equal concentrations of up to a few wt %,
higher grades occurring in ores with higher sulfide content. PGEs are commonly

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45 2.2 Types of magmatic ore deposits

by-products and are typically present at concentrations of order 1 ppm. Ore ranges
texturally from massive sulfide ore with greater than 50% by volume sulfide in lenses
up to a few metres thick, through net-textured or matrix ore, in which there are continuous
aggregates of sulfide minerals enclosing silicate minerals, to stringer or veinlet ore in
which there are small irregular segregations of sulfides, often resembling veins, to
disseminated ore in which sulfides occur as xenomorphic segregations from about
1 mm to several centimetres diameter within a silicate matrix. In all ore types, the sulfides
are intergrown mixtures of Ni and Cu minerals with pyrrhotite.
The tenor of the ore is the concentration of Ni or Cu in the sulfide fraction of the rock.
The tenor ranges from a few percentage up to about 20% in these magmatic sulfide ores,
hence rocks with a few percentage or more of sulfides constitute ore. Some intrusions
have concentrations of sulfides that are spread out over relatively thick zones and are too
weak to constitute economic ores. The intrusions of the large Duluth Complex of
Minnesota, USA, contain a known resource of about 4000 Mt of rock with disseminated
Cu–Ni sulfide minerals and about 0.2% Ni disseminated over tens of metres of thickness
of the host intrusions. Although very large, these concentrations of magmatic sulfides do
not constitute ore at the present time (cf. Figure 1.7).

(b) The nature of the host intrusions

Most of the host intrusions of massive Ni–Cu ores are broadly layered with lower more
mafic layers and zonation upwards to less mafic compositions. However, they lack the
marked cumulate layering on 10- to 100-metre scales that is characteristic of intrusions
that host chromite ores (Section 2.2.2) and PGE ores (Section 2.2.4).
There are marked differences in the sizes, forms, and depths and styles of emplacement
of the host intrusions:
 There are multiple, closely spaced small ore-hosting gabbro-norite to gabbro intrusions
in the Noril’sk-Talnakh complex. Each intrusion is a flat-lying lens up to a few
kilometres diameter in plan view (Figure 2.13). These intrusions formed in sedimentary
rocks about 1 km below one of the eruptive centres of the extensive Permo-Triassic
Siberian Traps flood basalts which contain about 106 km3 of basalts and originally
extended over an area at least 2000 km by 2000 km. The thicknesses of hornfelsic
contact metamorphic aureoles around these intrusions indicate that magma flowed
through the intrusions to feed the overlying basalt flows, rather than into the intrusions
as a single pulse. The intrusions are thus interpreted to be parts of the upper-crustal
feeder conduits that delivered magma to one of the world’s largest flood-basalt
provinces.
2
 The Mesoproterozoic Jinchuan intrusion is a small intrusion (~ 3 km ), but has an
elongate flared shape (canoe shape) above a relatively narrow underlying feeder dyke,
similar to the Great Dyke of Zimbabwe (cf. Figure 2.6), suggesting that it is an
erosional remnant of a larger igneous body and that the ores are hosted in the feeder
zone to this intrusion.
 Two small ore-bearing intrusions of an area of a few square kilometres and that are
connected by a feeder dyke are exposed at Voisey’s Bay. These intrusions formed at
several kilometres depth in gneisses, and are interpreted to be part of an originally
much larger magmatic complex. At Voisey’s Bay, the magma was originally picrite

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