Page 22 - gt1512
P. 22
Layered Mafic Intrusions and
Associated Economic Deposits
8–12 August 2016
Red Lodge, Montana, USA
CONVENERS DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES
Alan E. Boudreau, School of the Environment, Duke University,
Durham, North Carolina, USA, boudreau@duke.edu Layered mafic intrusions play a central role in our under-
Eric C. Ferré, Department of Geology, Southern Illinois University, standing of magmatic systems. They also represent one of the
Carbondale, Illinois, USA, eferre@geo.siu.edu fundamental modes of magma transfer from the upper mantle to
Brian O’Driscoll, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental the crust. These magmatic systems formed throughout geologic
Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, brian.odriscoll time from the Archean (e.g., Stillwater Complex) to the Paleogene
@manchester.ac.uk (e.g., Skaergaard Complex) on all five continents. Because many
Edward M. Ripley, Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana of the best-studied layered intrusions are associated with Large
University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, ripley@indiana.edu Igneous Provinces, they are largely independent from tectonic
processes at plate boundaries. Layered intrusions have generated
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE significant historic interest from the igneous petrology and
geochemistry communities because they lie at the heart of some of
Steve Barnes, CSIRO Mineral Resources; Mike Cheadle, the most fundamental petrologic precepts, such as fractional crys-
University of Wyoming; James Day, Scripps Institution of tallization and Bowen’s reaction series. These intrusions also host
Oceanography; Jeff Gee, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; first-class economic deposits of platinum group elements (PGE),
Allen Glazner, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill; chrome, and nickel around the world. As an illustration of how
Tom Kalakay, Rocky Mountain College; Mike Koski, Stillwater unique and important these environments are, it is worth high-
Mining Company; Craig Lundstrom, University of Illinois lighting that the Bushveld Complex (South Africa) hosts >75% of
Urbana-Champaign; Wolfgang Maier, University of Manchester; the world’s exploited platinum. The Stillwater Complex also hosts
Larry Meinert, U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Resources significant economic quantities of these precious metals, at even
Program; Bill Meurer, ExxonMobil; Phil Moffitt, Rocky higher grades (i.e., 18 ppm Pt + Pd) than the Bushveld, so it is an
Mountain Association of Geologists; James Scoates, University important location for understanding ore forming processes. In
of British Columbia; Bob Stewart, North American Platinum general, it is the combination of the industrial and scientific rele-
vance of layered intrusions that has ensured support for research
Cosponsored by National Science Foundation, GSA Foundation, on these intrusions for the past six decades.
U.S. Geological Survey, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists
Foundation. Despite the large volume of literature dedicated to layered
intrusions, advances in various sub-disciplines are somewhat scat-
tered, and there is a need for synthesis of the past twenty years of
research as well as an urgent need to define the new scientific
challenges that the broad community and graduate students
GSA TODAY | DECEMBER 2015
22
