Exploring the Dimensions of Magmatic Sulfide Mineral Systems

🌍 Understanding mineral systems requires considering length and time scales.

⛈️ Mineral systems can be compared to storm cells, with various processes operating at different scales.

📊 A length scale-time scale diagram can help visualize and analyze the interactions of different processes in mineral systems.

🔑 Different processes control magmatic sulfide mineral systems, including magmatic flow, thermal diffusion, and chemical diffusion.

🧪 Chemical diffusion processes are much slower than thermal diffusion processes and only matter at very small length scales.

🌋 Geological processes in magmatic sulfide systems can be observed and analyzed based on their timescale and length scale.

🔥 Thermal erosion can happen over meters and on the scale of days, while the formation of thermal orioles takes much longer.

💡 The main way of getting sulfur into the magma is by physically incorporating cellphone-bearing warm rock into the magma through the process of thermal erosion.

🌋 Disaggregated xenoliths in the magma can transport sulfur a long way before they melt, and this has implications for the formation of different types of deposits.

⏰ The process of mixing sulfide droplets with magma and scavenging metals is relatively slow due to the diffusion of sulfur in the magma.

🔑 In magmatic sulfide mineral systems, there is a strong tendency for sulfide liquid to reactivate and move downwards.

🔒 To form a deposit, these systems need to operate on large enough scales and time scales of hundreds of thousands of years.

🌋 In shield volcanoes, magma can flow both vertically and laterally, and a major eruption at a distance can lead to collapse in the summit caldera.

🌡️ Magma withdrawal and vertical and horizontal motions happen at length scales of thousands of feet and on a timescale of days.

⚙️ Forming nickel sulfide deposits involves major channel switching events, backflow, and accumulation in choke points within the plumbing system.

🧪 An analogy to an elutriation column is used to explain the efficient segregation of particles from the fluid in the formation of deposits.

📜 Magma flows quickly, melting of xenoliths is important, and multiple stages of recycling occur in conduit systems for oil formation.

⚫️ The video discusses the study of layered intrusions and the challenges of deriving rates for processes within them.

🔴 The speaker applies their findings to a specific location, the Albany Fraser origin, and discusses the composition and structure of the intrusions found there.

🟢 The video highlights the unique textures and characteristics of the rocks found in the intrusions, such as zoned crystals and complex patterns.

🌋 Magmatic sulfide mineral systems involve the infiltration of sulfides into country rocks.

⚒️ Sulfide infiltration causes melting and fracturing of the country rocks.

🔍 Magmatic textures and reactions can be observed within the sulfide minerals.

🔍 Sulfide infiltration process is self-reinforcing, leading to the propagation of sulfide veins under their own weight.

🌡️ The timescales of magmatic sulfide mineral systems depend on the thermal regime, with cooling taking around a thousand years and sulfide solidification potentially taking millions of years.

⏰ The formation of certain minerals, such as zone purakh scenes, can happen on the timescale of hours to days, while other processes, like percolation of sulfide liquids, may take thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.