Petrology of ultramafic rocks and Mg-rich carbonate minerals in southeast of Dehshir, Central Iran

Abstract

The study area is located southeast of Dehshir between the Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc and Nain-Baft Ophiolite Belt comprising the Nain, Dehshir, Shahr Babak, and Baft ophiolite complexes. The Dehshir Ophiolitic Complex which obducted in the Late Cretaceous, consists mainly of ultramafic rocks. These remnants of oceanic crust are extensively faulted and fractured. The severe faulting and brecciating of the ophiolite sequence have undergone high-grade alteration and changed it to the tectonic melange. The Dehshir colored melange is bounded to the west by Dehshir fault which is a right-lateral offset of the Nain-Baft suture. In this research, the petrographic studies of the area showed that the ultramafic rocks consist mainly of dunite and harzburgite intruded by diabasic dikes. Syntectonic hydrothermal fluids circulated throughout these rocks. Migration of Mg-rich fluids and hydrothermal brecciating occurred within highly altered and brecciated zones. Magnesite precipitated from hydrothermal solutions and formed the massive, lenticular, and vein-type ore deposits in serpentinized-hosted rocks. Later on, magnesite turned into hydromagnesite due to hydration at the lower depths near the surface. According to the X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence analysis, hydromagnesite is the most dominant and widely occurring Mg-rich carbonate mineral in this area. The main alteration is serpentinization but birbiritization also occurs as a result of interaction between fluids and ultramafic rocks.