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Extreme crustal fractionation in a Proterozoic chemical hotspot

Created 24/10/2025

Updated 24/10/2025

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The distribution of mineral systems is heterogeneous over space and time, reflecting transient element enrichment within Earth’s evolving crust. Australian Proterozoic rocks host some of the world’s largest ore deposits including the Broken Hill lead-zinc-silver deposit, within the Curnamona Province, and the Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold-silver super-deposit, within the Gawler Craton, offering key insights into crustal preconditioning for mineralization. New whole-rock and feldspar Pb isotopic data and apatite geochronology support a common source for Mesoproterozoic magmatism in the Curnamona Province and Gawler Craton and a genetic link between their world-class ore deposits. Exceptionally radiogenic Pb isotope ratios in the Curnamona Province indicate extreme crustal fractionation, driven by a positive feedback scenario where crustal anatexis produced melts strongly enriched in heat-producing, incompatible elements, which in turn prolonged anatectic conditions through radiogenic heat production, promoting metal transport. This chemical hotspot may have been triggered by delamination following the assembly of the Nuna supercontinent.

Citation: Liebmann, J., Ware, B., Kirkland, C.L., Mole, D.R., Fraser, G., Mahan, B., Wainwright, A.N. & Maas, R. 2025. Extreme crustal fractionation in a Proterozoic chemical hotspot. Journal of Petrology, 66(3), egaf017, https://doi.org/10.1093/petrology/egaf017.

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Field Value
Title Extreme crustal fractionation in a Proterozoic chemical hotspot
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/592a4b77-3c26-4a62-92cc-37c4f0abccef
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Extreme crustal fractionation in a Proterozoic chemical hotspot". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/extreme-crustal-fractionation-in-a-proterozoic-chemical-hotspot