Variable mineralization processes during the formation of the Permian Hulu Ni-Cu sulfide deposit, Xinjiang, Northwestern China

Abstract

The Permian Hulu Ni-Cu sulfide deposit is located at the southern margin of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB) in Northern Xinjiang, Northwestern China. The host intrusion of the Hulu deposit is composed of a layered mafic-ultramafic sequence and a dike-like unit. The layered sequence is composed of harzburgite, lherzolite, pyroxenite, gabbro, gabbrodiorite and diorite. The dike-like body comprises lherzolite and gabbro. Sulfide orebodies occur mainly within the harzburgite, pyroxenite and lherzolite at the base of the layered sequence and within the lherzolite in the dike-like body. Sulfide mineralization from the Hulu deposit shows significant depletion of PGE relative to Cu and Ni. These elements show good positive correlations with S in the sulfide mineralization from the dike-like unit but relatively weak correlations in the sulfide mineralization from the layered sequence. The sulfide mineralization from the layered unit shows excellent positive correlations between Ir and Os, Ru or Rh, and poor relationships between Ir and Pt or Pd. On the contrary, sulfide mineralization from the dike-like unit shows good correlations in the diagrams of Os, Ru, Rh, Pt and Pd against Ir. Both high Cu/Pd ratios (8855–481,398) and our modeling indicate that PGE depletion resulted from sulfide removal in a deep staging magma chamber. The evolved PGE-depleted magmas then ascended to the shallower magma chamber and became sulfide saturation due to crustal contamination. Both low Se/S ratios (33.5×10−6–487.5×10−6) and a negative correlation between Se/S and Cu/Pd ratios are consistent with the addition of crustal S. A large number of sulfide liquids segregated with minor crystallization of monosulfide solid solution (MSS) in the shallower magma chamber. When new magma pulses with unfractionated sulfide droplets entered the shallower magma chamber, the sulfide slurry containing crystallized MSS may be disrupted and mixed with the unfractionated sulfide droplets. The mixing of sulfides would result in poor correlations between IPGE (Os, Ir and Ru) and PPGE (Rh, Pt and Pd) in the layered sequence. By contrast, insufficient mixing of the sulfide droplets segregated from different pulses of magma led to variable PGE tenors and good correlations between IPGE and PPGE in the dike-like unit. Numerous Permian mafic-ultramafic intrusions in the CAOB are favorable hosts to magmatic sulfide deposits.