Nickel
Abstract Although nickel is a highly chalcophile element, and indeed has a stronger affinity for sulphur than has iron, and although its average abundance in sea-floor basalts is some 60 per cent greater than that of copper, it is conspicuous for its scarcity in exhalative ores. It has been suggeste...
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| Format: | Book Part |
| Language: | unknown |
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Oxford University PressOxford
1994
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198540502.003.0019 https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52447636/isbn-9780198540502-book-part-19.pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract Although nickel is a highly chalcophile element, and indeed has a stronger affinity for sulphur than has iron, and although its average abundance in sea-floor basalts is some 60 per cent greater than that of copper, it is conspicuous for its scarcity in exhalative ores. It has been suggested by Lusk (1976a,b) that some of the stratiform nickel deposits associated with mafic to ultramafic lavas of the Archaean of Australia and Canada may be exhalative, and a firm case for such an origin for the nickelcobalt-bearing copper deposits of Outokumpu, in the Lower Proterozoic Karelian terrane of Finland, has been made by Peltola (1978), Koistinen (1981), and others. Apart from this, however, nickel appears as no more than a trace in exhalative deposits. As far as the writer is aware, exhalative ores containing commercial quantities of nickel are unknown in the two great epochs of exhalative ore formation: the Lower Proterozoic, c. 1500-2000 Ma, and the Lower to Middle Palaeozoic, 350-550Ma. |
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