Dunite, peridotite and pyroxenite of the Arakawa and Iwakura-yama bodies along the Hayachine tectonic belt in the Kamaishi mining district, Northeastern Japan, have been weakly to completely serpentinized. Magnetite and a variety of Fe-Ni(-Co) sulfides occur in these rocks, which have secondarily formed under serpentinization.
With the progress of serpentinization of the host rocks, mineral assemblages in the Fe-Ni-S-O system change as follows.
1. Arakawa body
Magmatic pyrrhotite-pentlandite→secondary hexagonal pyrrhotite-pentlandite-mackinawite.
2. Iwakura-yama body
Magmatic pyrrhotite-pentlandite→secondary monoclinic pyrrhotite-pentlandite-magnetite→secondary pentlandite-heazlewoodite-godlevskite-magnetite→secondary pentlandite-violarite-pyrite-magnetite, pentlandite-violarite-magnetite, pentlandite-violarite-inillerite-magnetite and violarite-millerite-magnetite.
Two kinds of violarites genetically different occur in the Hayachine ultramafic rocks, one which has replaced pentlandite under supergene condition and the other which is regarded to have formed in association with pentlandite, millerite and magnetite under the serpentinization. Violarite in the above assemblages is the latter one.
In present study, chemical analyses of the phases in each assemblage were carefully made by electron microprobe method, and a tentative low-temperature (about 200°C) phase diagrams of the Fe-Ni-S and Fe-Ni-S-O systems were drawn on the basis of the analytical data and the experimental studies so far reported. The chemical compositions of the violarite range from Fe
0.6 Ni
2.4S
4 to Fe
1.3 Ni
1.8 S
4, indicating that violarite-pentlandite tie line is stable at low temperature in the Fe-Ni-S system.
Projecting the Hayachine mineral assemblages onto the log Po
2-log Ps
2 diagram of the Fe-Ni-S-O system, it was revealed that both Po
2 and Ps
2 have gradually become lower during serpentinization reaction, and both higher in the process after that reaction. These phenomena can be interpreted from the viewpoints of supply of H
2O, formation of H
2 and desulfurization of magmatic sulfides.
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