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Abstract:
The Bushveld Complex in South Africa is the world’s largest magmatic intrusion and at the same time the most important source of technologically important metals including chromium, vanadium and above all the platinum group elements. This flat, saucer-shaped intrusion has a volume of about 1 million km3 and by itself classifies as a Large Igneous Province. Within this vast intrusion, the platinum ores are mined from just two thin layers: the Merensky Reef and the UG2. Each of these is about one meter thick and both are continuous over hundreds of kilometers. The ore-bearing horizons, like other layers in the complex, clearly formed by igneous processes of crystallization in a magma chamber. The reseach challenges are to understand what processes accomplished the thousand-fold concentration of platinum from background levels to ore grade, and how ores were concentrated in such thin layers in a 9 kilometer-thick intrusion. Apart from providing answers to these scientific questions, the detailed mineralogical and microchemical studies of Bushveld ores at the GFZ are also being applied to find ways of improving the efficiency of ore beneficiation and platinum recovery.
