1977 Volume 27 Issue 145 Pages 293-305
Opaque minerals of common granitic rocks were studied microscopically. The granitoids were divided into (i) a magnetite-bearing magnetite-series and (ii) a magnetite-free ilmenite-series. Each series has the following characteristic assemblages of accessary minerals:
Magnetite-series: Magnetite (0.1-2 vol.%), ilmenite, hematite, pyrite, sphene, epidote, high ferric/ferrous (and high Mg/Fe) biotite;
Ilmenite-series: Ilmenite (less than 0.1 vol.%), pyrrhotite, graphite, muscovite, low ferric/ferrous (and low Mg/Fe) biotite.
The mineral assemblages imply a higher oxygen fugacity in the magnetite-series granitoids than in the ilmenite-series granitoids during solidification of the granitic magmas. The boundary separating the two series is probably near the Ni-NiO buffer.
The magnetite-series granitoids are considered to have been generated in a deep level (upper mantle and lowest crust) and not to have interacted with C-bearing materials; whereas the ilmenite-series granitoids were generated in the middle to lower continental crust and mixed with C-bearing metamorphic and sedimentary rocks at various stages in their igneous history. The former carries porphyry copper-molybdenum deposits and the latter accompanies greisen-type tin-wolframite deposits. Lack of porphyry copper deposits in the Mesozoic orogeny belts in East Asia is related to a general paucity of the magnetite-series granitoids in this terrane.
