A billion-year shift in the formation of Earth's largest ore deposits.

ABSTRACT: Banded iron formations (BIFs) archive the relationship between Earth's lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere through time. However, constraints on the origin of Earth's largest ore deposits, hosted by BIFs, are limited by the absence of direct geochronology. Without this temporal context, genetic models cannot be correlated with tectono-thermal and atmospheric drivers responsible for BIF upgrading through time. Utilizing in situ iron oxide U-Pb geochronology, we provide a direct timeline of events tracing development of all the giant BIF-hosted hematite deposits of the Hamersley Province (Pilbara Craton, Western Australia). Direct dating demonstrates that the major iron ore deposits in the region formed during 1.4 to 1.1 Ga. This is one billion to hundreds of millions of years later tha

SUBMITTER: Courtney-Davies L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11295007 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature