Petrogenesis of the Ultramafic Zone of the Stillwater Complex in North America: constraints from mineral chemistry and stable isotopes of Li and O

To investigate the petrogenesis of cyclic units in layered intrusions, we examined chromitite, dunite, poikilitic harzburgite and bronzitite from the Ultramafic Zone of the Stillwater Complex and measured stable isotopes of Li and O in their major minerals. The Li isotopes in olivine range from 4 to 26‰ in δ⁷Li with uniform Li contents of 1–3 ppm, whereas orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene have Li contents of 0.5–5 ppm and 4–8 ppm, and δ⁷Li ranges of −13 to 7‰ and −14 to −6‰, respectively. The δ¹⁸O values vary from 4.91 to 5.72‰ in olivine, from 5.11 to 5.87‰ in orthopyroxene, and from 4.64 to 5.86‰ in clinopyroxene. For a given sample, olivine displays more variable and higher δ⁷Li but lower δ¹⁸O values than orthopyroxene, indicating that olivine experienced more extensive compositional modification after crystallization relative to orthopyroxene. The general Li and O isotopic compositions are interpreted as the result of re-equilibration between interstitial liquids, from which pyroxenes crystallized, and cumulus minerals. The inter-mineral and inter-sample isotopic variations correlate with mineral assemblages, crystal sizes and major and trace element compositions, revealing that the interstitial liquids varied compositionally mainly due to mixing between fractionated magma and newly injected primitive magma. Abrupt mineralogical and geochemical changes from silicate rocks to chromitites imply that hydrous fluids, which collected on chromite surfaces and were later released from chromite seams, played an additional, critical medium of chemical exchange between minerals in the chromitites.