Synchrotron IMBL data of Le_Vaillant_13024 (March 2018)

Magmatic Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposits are some of the world’s most valuable sources of metals and precious metals. However, several questions remain open regarding the physical processes involved in their genesis. Some of the biggest unknowns relate to the balance between gravitational and surface tension forces controlling interactions between sulfide and silicate magmas. We are investigating this balance through scaled modelling using analogue materials. In order to quantify these processes and understand the physics behind them, we need high resolution (time and spatial) 3D imaging of our analogue modelling experiments. The IMB is the ideal facility for this work.

The purpose of the proposed experiment is to obtain real time, high resolution 3D imaging of analogue modelling experiments. The analogue modelling experiments we want to image are reproducing some of the settling, concentration and infiltration mechanisms of magmatic nickel sulfides within mafic-ultramafic magmatic intrusions and flows. Understanding these mechanism would greatly improve our knowledge of the behaviour of magmatic sulfides, thus improving our prediction capabilities as to where magmatic nickel sulfides deposits are located within large magmatic systems. Furthermore, these experiments address a fundamental area of fluid physics to do with percolation of fine emulsions of immiscible fluids through porous media. This fluid dynamic understanding has implications in a number of different applications including industrial waste disposal and dispersal of hydrocarbon pollutants in groundwater.