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The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers

The Rustenburg Layered Suite of the Bushveld Complex of South Africa is a vast layered accumulation of mafic and ultramafic rocks. It has long been regarded as a textbook result of fractional crystallization from a melt-dominated magma chamber. Here, we show that most units of the Rustenburg Layered...

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Autores principales: Yao, Zhuosen, Mungall, James E., Jenkins, M. Christopher
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7820422/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33479217
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20778-w
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author Yao, Zhuosen
Mungall, James E.
Jenkins, M. Christopher
author_facet Yao, Zhuosen
Mungall, James E.
Jenkins, M. Christopher
author_sort Yao, Zhuosen
collection PubMed
description The Rustenburg Layered Suite of the Bushveld Complex of South Africa is a vast layered accumulation of mafic and ultramafic rocks. It has long been regarded as a textbook result of fractional crystallization from a melt-dominated magma chamber. Here, we show that most units of the Rustenburg Layered Suite can be derived with thermodynamic models of crustal assimilation by komatiitic magma to form magmatic mushes without requiring the existence of a magma chamber. Ultramafic and mafic cumulate layers below the Upper and Upper Main Zone represent multiple crystal slurries produced by assimilation-batch crystallization in the upper and middle crust, whereas the chilled marginal rocks represent complementary supernatant liquids. Only the uppermost third formed via lower-crustal assimilation–fractional crystallization and evolved by fractional crystallization within a melt-rich pocket. Layered intrusions need not form in open magma chambers. Mineral deposits hitherto attributed to magma chamber processes might form in smaller intrusions of any geometric form, from mushy systems entirely lacking melt-dominated magma chambers.
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spelling pubmed-78204222021-01-29 The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers Yao, Zhuosen Mungall, James E. Jenkins, M. Christopher Nat Commun Article The Rustenburg Layered Suite of the Bushveld Complex of South Africa is a vast layered accumulation of mafic and ultramafic rocks. It has long been regarded as a textbook result of fractional crystallization from a melt-dominated magma chamber. Here, we show that most units of the Rustenburg Layered Suite can be derived with thermodynamic models of crustal assimilation by komatiitic magma to form magmatic mushes without requiring the existence of a magma chamber. Ultramafic and mafic cumulate layers below the Upper and Upper Main Zone represent multiple crystal slurries produced by assimilation-batch crystallization in the upper and middle crust, whereas the chilled marginal rocks represent complementary supernatant liquids. Only the uppermost third formed via lower-crustal assimilation–fractional crystallization and evolved by fractional crystallization within a melt-rich pocket. Layered intrusions need not form in open magma chambers. Mineral deposits hitherto attributed to magma chamber processes might form in smaller intrusions of any geometric form, from mushy systems entirely lacking melt-dominated magma chambers. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7820422/ /pubmed/33479217 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20778-w Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Yao, Zhuosen
Mungall, James E.
Jenkins, M. Christopher
The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers
title The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers
title_full The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers
title_fullStr The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers
title_full_unstemmed The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers
title_short The Rustenburg Layered Suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers
title_sort rustenburg layered suite formed as a stack of mush with transient magma chambers
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7820422/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33479217
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20778-w
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