The 1.88 Ga Kotalahti and Vammala nickel belts, Finland: Geochemistry of the mafic and ultramafic metavolcanic rocks

Abstract

The mafic and ultramafic volcanic rocks within the Svecofennian (1.88 Ga) Kotalahti and Vammala Nickel Belts, Finland, are spatially associated and coeval with a suite of mineralized mafic-ultramafic intrusions. They have been divided into five suites based on major element geochemistry and spatial distribution: the Rantasalmi high- and low-Mg suites, the Vammala high-Mg suite, and the Rantasalmi, Kestilä and Pielavesi low-Mg suites. The Rantasalmi and Vammala high-Mg suites are very similar and probably comagmatic, and the Kestilä and Rantasalmi low-Mg suites are derived from them by a combination of fractionation and crustal assimilation. The Pielavesi suite is interpreted as an unrelated suite of island-arc affinity. On the basis of their trace element contents, the Kotalahti Belt intrusions are comagmatic with part of the analyzed volcanic rocks. In the Vammala Belt it is likely that the parent magmas to the intrusions and picrite magmas have a common mantle source but have evolved along distinct paths, and the picrites probably do not represent parent magmas tapped directly from the intrusions. Platinum-group element data show localised evidence for depletion by sulfide extraction. Vammala picrites are predominantly S-undersaturated, with the exception of lavas in the Stormi area. In the Kotalahti Belt the volcanic rocks are predominantly S-undersaturated, while the volcanic rocks in the more northern part of the Belt are predominantly S-saturated. These spatial differences imply that the PGE contents of the metavolcanic rocks can be used as regional area selection criteria for intrusive nickel-copper-(PGE) deposits within the Finnish Svecofennian.

Keywords

• platinum
• nickel
• sulfides
• ultramafics
• volcanic rocks
• picrite
• Svecofennian
• Finland