MAGMATIC AND HYDROTHERMAL PLATINUM-GROUP MINERALS AND BASE-METAL SULFIDES IN THE BAULA COMPLEX, INDIA

Abstract

The 3 × 0.5 km gabbro-hosted Precambrian Baula Complex, in Orissa, India, comprises a steeply dipping pyroxenite unit in tectonic contact to the east with a peridotite unit that contains three chromitite layers and that becomes pyroxene-rich eastward toward the top. The ultramafic formations are intruded by the Bangur Gabbro, the top of which entered a shear zone, forming a breccia zone. The breccia, 1 to 40 m thick and almost continuous along strike for 2000 m, shows extensive vertical and lateral variations. It is made up of ultramafic blocks of various sizes derived from the Baula Complex within a matrix of hydrothermally altered Bangur Gabbro. The brecciation process has affected one of the chromitite layers. Two categories of platinum-group-element (PGE) mineralization have been observed in the Baula Complex, both associated with the Bangur Gabbro. The first (type 1) occurs within a sulfide-free magmatic environment within the Bangur Gabbro near its contact with the peridotite, and is clearly formed within a magmatic environment. The PGE-bearing rock contains relics of dunite and chromitite extracted mechanically from the ultramafic formations by the intrusive gabbro. This mineralization is dominated by Pt (Pt/Pd in the range 8–9), is anomalous in Rh, and the platinum-group-mineral (PGM) assemblage is dominated by isoferroplatinum, braggite and malanite, with sperrylite and laurite, included in pyroxene and plagioclase. The second category (types 2A and 2B) is restricted to the hydrothermally altered matrix of the breccia zone. Type 2A has PGE associated with base-metal mineralization; the PGE assemblages are characterized by Pd (Pt/Pd 0.5), and the PGM are mainly sudburyite, minerals of the system Pd–Bi–Te–Sb, and sperrylite. Type 2B is not associated with base metals, the PGE are characterized by Pt (Pt/Pd in the range 2–3), and PGM phases of the Pt–Sb–As system (geversite, sperrylite) coexist with Pd antimony (mertieite-II). The PGE minerals form discrete grains, a) in the hydrous silicate matrix (commonly as clusters) without base-metal sulfides (BMS) or in the silicate matrix accompanying BMS trails, where they are in some cases adjacent to disseminated BMS, b) within ferrian chromite, c) within BMS in silicates, and d) within or adjacent to BMS in ferrian chromite. We present the results of electron-microprobe analyses of the PGM and BMS phases, and propose a model in which type-1 mineralization results from an orthomagmatic episode, whereas the type-2 mineralization is a result of hydromagmatic processes affecting the gabbroic matrix of the complex breccia zone.