Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

This project will study how the world's largest accumulation of nickel-copper sulfides formed and how they became localized at the base of an impact melt sheet and in associated projections into the surrounding rocks. It will focus on three particularly important problems: 1) the sources of sulfur, nickel, copper, and platinum-group elements in the ores, some of which may come from the impact melt and some of which may come from underlying rocks after impact, 2) the causes and timing of the event leading to the formation of the ores and whether it occurred across the entire melt sheet or whether it was more localized, and 3) the origin and timing of emplacement of the projections into the surrounding rocks, many of which host significant amounts of mineralization. The work will be done in three key areas, each addressing a specific part of the problem, and will train 3 PhD students in field, laboratory, and computational methods.