『Abstract
The mineralogy, geochemistry, and in some cases, the mode of origin
of many Phanerozoic sedimentary manganese orebodies are fairly
well known, but the effects of the important variables represented
by changing ocean chemistry, sea level, and climate on ore ore
formation are only recently being considered. The high degree
of mobility of manganese, particularly through redox processes,
insures that it can change phase during weathering, transport,
deposition, and diagenesis.
During chemical weathering, manganese is solubilized in acid,
reducing conditions and carried in surface and subsurfaces waters
to the coastal zone, where many of the exploitable deposits can
form in slightly reducing (carbonate ores) to oxidizing conditions
(oxide ores). Rainfall controls ground-water acidity through fostering
vegetation growth. Major deposits at Groote Eylandt, Australia,
and the extensive deposits of the Paratethys seaway in eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union accumulated as a result of large-scale
delivery of dissolved Mn to restricted black shale basins during
marine transgressions. The deposits show compositional zoning
and display evidence of having been deposited in shallow-marine
rnvironments following accumulation of a dilute ore solution in
the basin interiors. manganese was precipitated when the environments
of the basin became oxidixed, apparently during the early stages
of marine regressions.
During the Phanerozoic the concentrations of dissolved oxygen
and carbon in the oceans varied significantly, in response to
large changes in the burial rate of organic carbon. When the rate
was high, there was a drawdown of atmospheric CO2,
which led to global reverse-greenhouse cooling. Later, upon oxidation
of sea-floor organic matter, CO2 was released
and greenhouse warming eventuated. Manganese is now known to have
precipitated rapidly as crusts in the oceans late in the glacial
and early in the interglacial stages of the Quaternary, probably
as a result of extensive sea-floor oxidation accompanying the
release of CO2. This same set of precesses,
operating over geologic time, may have played a significant role,
first, in generating large reservoirs of dissolved manganese in
intracratonic basins and in the oceans, and second, by providing
the metal for the formation of ore deposits when conditions changed.』
Introduction
Manganese in the Ocean-Atmospheric System
The land-based cycle
The coastal zone
Oceanic settings
Ocean Chemistry as a Factor in Ore Formation
Sea Level as a Factor in Ore Formation
Climate as a Factor in Ore Formation
Conclusions
References