Mechanisms for concentrating critical metals in granitic complexes: insights from the Mourne Mountains, Northern Ireland

Abstract

The Tellus stream sediment and deep soil geochemistry data sets for Northern Ireland were used to locate four types of critical metals anomalies in granite bedrocks of the Mourne Mountains. A curvi-linear array of Nb, REE, Th and U soil anomalies across the eastern Mourne Mountains correlated with late-stage and eutectic temperature minerals in the roof zone of the most peralkaline F- and volatile-rich granite body, remobilized on micron to millimetre scales. Li, Be, B, As, Sn, Mn 3+ and Ce 4+ partitioned into pockets of late-stage heterogeneously distributed F-rich silicic residual melts and relatively oxidizing halide-rich magmatic fluids, resulting in drusy mineral and hydrothermal assemblages. Isolated soil anomalies correlated with amorphous Mn 3+ - and Ce 4+ -rich masses infilling drusy cavities, which resulted from short-distance percolation of small volumes of late-stage magmatic fluids. A significant As plume in stream sediments emanated from a greisen that hosted multiple critical and base metals including Sn, from reactions between large volumes of magmatic As + halide-rich fluids and mafic silicate + diverse accessory minerals on the metre- to kilometre-scale along geological structures. Diverse, small-scale REE anomalies in the soil data along structural features in the western Mournes correlate with vein mineralization resulting from episodic migration of hydrous fluids of variable composition, probably with a much smaller magmatic component than elsewhere. The regional geochemical dataset proved useful to develop a multi-stage model for enrichment of critical metals in the Mourne Mountains granites, which is analogous to the petrogenesis of some of the igneous-hosted economic deposits of critical metals. Thematic collection: This article is part of the energy-critical metals for a low carbon transition collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/topic/collections/critical-metals