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Low-T formation of high-Cr spinel with apparently primary chemical characteristics within podiform chromitite from Rayat, northeastern Iraq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

S. Arai ,
Y. Shimizu ,
S. A. Ismail  and
A. H. Ahmed
S. Arai*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan
Y. Shimizu
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan
S. A. Ismail
Affiliation:
Geology Department, Salahiddin University, Erbil, Iraq
A. H. Ahmed
Affiliation:
Geology Department, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt
*
*E-mail: ultrasa@kenroku.kanazawa-u.ac.jp
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Abstract

Chemical modification of chromian spinel at low-T alteration was examined in detail for a podiform chromitite from a Tethyan ophiolitic mélange belt at Rayat, northeastern Iraq. The chromitite is highly brecciated and the matrix has been completely altered, producing chlorite and carbonate (dolomite and calcite). High-Cr, low-Fe3+ spinel has formed along the margins and cracks of chromian spinel grains throughout the alteration, associated with unaltered primary spinel and magnetite without ferritchromite. In associated harzburgites, only ferritchromite is found instead of the high-Cr, low-Fe3+ spinel. The high-Cr, low-Fe3+ secondary spinel apparently has chemical properties of mantle origin, plotted at the extension of ordinary mantle spinels on compositional spaces. The character is due to subtraction of Al as chlorite with the addition of an amount of magnetite component from the silicate matrix, which is small in volume relative to peridotite and composed of highly magnesian olivine (up to Fo97). We should treat high-Cr chromian spinels with caution in highly altered mantle-derived rocks, especially chromitite and other rocks with highly magnesian olivine, as well as in detrital particles for provenance study.

Keywords

Cr-rich spinelalterationchromititeRayatIraq
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 70 , Issue 5 , October 2006 , pp. 499 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2006

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