Hydrothermal alteration of chromitite-dunite pairs from the Sabzevar ophiolite (NE Iran): Chemical and nano-textural evolution of Cr-spinel

Hydrothermal alteration of chromitite bodies in the form of pods (from a few centimeters to a few tens of meters in thickness) from the central sector of the Sabzevar ophiolite belt (NE Iran) was examined down to the nanoscale. The main Cr-spinel alteration feature corresponds to homogeneous cores (primary Cr-spinel) either rimmed by or locally replaced by heterogeneous domains composed of spinel grains with little or no inclusions / pores. The chemical evolution of spinel in response to hydrothermal alteration is found to follow two distinct chemical trends: (i) in the massive and semi-massive chromitites, the trend consists in the progressive increase of Cr without Fe3+ incorporation; (ii) in serpentinized dunites containing disseminated Cr-spinel grains, the increase in Cr occurs in conjunction with Fe3+ incorporation. These two trends involve a decrease in the spinel Mg/(Mg + Fe2+) ratio. Nanoscale observation using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) shows that porous ferrian Cr-spinel which are poorer in Al and Mg and richer in Cr and Fe than the primary Cr-spinel, contains relicts of the primary Cr-spinel as well as intercalated platelets of newly formed magnetite and lizardite/chlorite. Automated crystal orientation mapping reveals that the (001) and (111) planes of newly formed lizardite/chlorite and Cr-spinel/magnetite, respectively, are parallel. The replacement of the primary Cr-spinel by porous ferrian Cr-spinel and magnetite is found to be isomorphic. The pores, ranging from 2 to 15 μm in size, may act as pathways for the aqueous solutions involved in the serpentinization process, which fed the crystallization of alteration minerals in the pores. The two different compositional trends in chromite grains from massive/semi-massive chromitite and hosted in serpentinized dunite are best explained, using mass-balance calculation, by considering the influence of the Cr-spinel/(Cr-spinel+olivine) initial ratio in the rock (XChr) and the dissolution of Mg at a water-to-rock ratio (w/r) above one. In general, at the cm-to-meter scale, Al and Fe exchange between chromitites and their serpentinized dunite envelope was not observed in the central sector of the Sabzevar ophiolite belt; however, such Al and Fe transfer is clearly observed in other parts of this ophiolite belt, where hydrothermal alteration of podiform chromitites produced magnetite ores. Comparatively, the small extend of chromitite alteration observed here, likely reflects the product of lesser fluid-rock interaction with w/r ratio close to one instead of >103 estimated for the magnetite ores based on the magnitude of the Al transfer to their dunite envelope.