What minerals make up skarn?

What minerals make up skarn?

The minerals commonly present in a skarn include iron oxides, calc-silicates (wollastonite, diopside, forsterite), andradite and grossularite garnet, epidote, and calcite. Many skarns also include ore minerals; several productive deposits of copper or other base metals have been found in and adjacent to skarns.

How is skarn made?

Skarn commonly forms around the edges of a magma body that intrudes a nearby rock mass. Rocks formed or altered by the interaction of magma, country rock, reactive fluids and heat are known as skarn. Other environments of metasomatic activity are also known to produce skarn.

What is skarn mineralization?

Skarn deposits have variable mineralization styles, from Cu and base metals to Au, etc. “Skarn deposits are one of the more abundant ore types in the earth’s crust. Skarn is a relatively simple rock type defined by a mineralogy usually dominated by calc-silicate minerals such as garnet and pyroxene.

What is the uses of skarn?

Skarn deposits are economically important valuable sources, which metals such as tungsten, manganese, gold, copper, zinc, nickel, lead, molybdenum and iron.

What causes metasomatism?

In the metamorphic environment, metasomatism is created by mass transfer from a volume of metamorphic rock at higher stress and temperature into a zone with lower stress and temperature, with metamorphic hydrothermal solutions acting as a solvent.

What does skarn mean?

[ skärn ] A coarse-grained metamorphic rock formed by the contact metamorphism of carbonate rocks.

What is skarn copper?

A skarn is a silicate-rich metamorphic rock. Skarns may or may not host economic reserves of metals, but if they do, these are called skarn deposits. The largest copper skarns are associated with mineralized porphyry copper plutons, or bodies of intrusive igneous rock.

What is gneiss used for?

Metamorphic Gneiss has many uses as a building material such as flooring, ornamental stones, gravestones, facing stones on buildings and work surfaces.

What kind of minerals are in a skarn?

Skarns are calc-silicate assemblages that form by metasomatic processes involving magmatic, metamorphic, and meteoric fluids. Typical silicate minerals are ubiquitous quartz and feldspar and variable amounts of garnet, pyroxene, pyroxenoids (such as wollastonite), olivine, amphibole, and epidote.

Can a skarn be classified as an ore deposit?

If a skarn has a respectable amount of ore mineralization that can be mined for a profit, it can therefore be classified as a skarn deposit.

Where did the name skarn rock come from?

Name origin: Skarn names came from old Swedish mining term is silicate gangue, or waste rock, associated with iron-ore bearing sulfide deposits Texture: They are fine, medium or coarse grained. Minerals: Mostly garnets and pyroxene with a wide variety of calc-silicate and associated minerals.

How are skarns formed and how are they formed?

Skarns can form during regional or contact metamorphism and from a variety of metasomatic processes involving fluids of magmatic, metamorphic, meteoric, and/or marine origin.