Weathering as a control on the triple oxygen isotopes of groundwater-associated ferromanganese deposits: lessons from the Grimlock Ni–Co–Mn prospect, Northern Territory, Australia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
At the Grimlock laterite deposit (Northern Territory, Australia), Co and Ni mineralization occurs mainly in the Mn-oxide rich layers of the ferromanganese (Fe-Mn) crust overlying ultramafic bedrock. Groundwater-associated Fe-Mn crusts consist of mineral (e.g. Mn-oxide, Fe-oxyhydroxide and silicate) groups suitable for studying triple oxygen isotopes and present unique interpretative challenges (e.g. small Mn-oxide fractions relative to Fe-Mn precipitates from other formation environments and extensive weathering). We evaluate triple oxygen isotopes within the context of changes to properties (i.e. mineralogy, major and trace element geochemistry, and degree of weathering) of a lateritic profile. We use pre-existing mineral-water fractionation factors, meteoric water <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 18 O and temperature data to calculate <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 18 O values of fully altered mineralogical endmembers, then, using mass balance, discuss scenarios to elucidate measured whole-rock <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 18 O values. The <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 18 O (′ denotes linearized notation) and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>Δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 17 O of near-surface samples (0–8 m) are generally lower (mean of 8.892‰) and higher (mean of −0.141‰), respectively, than the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 18 O (mean of 12.767‰) and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>Δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 17 O (mean of −0.176‰) of samples from greater depths (19–22 m). At 16–17 m depth, <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 18 O and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>Δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 17 O are relatively high (means of 17.509 and −0.118‰, respectively). The measured whole-rock <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> 18 O values are explainable by substituting lower <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 18 O values for the Mn-oxide and Fe-oxyhydroxide fractions, and higher <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> ′ 18 O values for the aluminosilicate fraction, changes coinciding with greater alteration. These results suggest that mineral weathering is primarily responsible for observed variations in the triple oxygen isotopes of groundwater-associated Fe-Mn crusts, rather than variation in the initial source of oxygen incorporated into Mn-oxide. Supplementary material: Grimlock sample photographs, XRD patterns and supplementary figures and tables are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7071907
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".