Where is the Bushveld Complex located?
South Africa
The complex has its geographic centre located north of Pretoria in South Africa at about 25° S and 29° E. It covers over 66,000 km2 (25,000 sq mi), an area the size of Ireland. The complex varies in thickness, in places reaching 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) thick.
How old is the Bushveld Complex?
2 billion years
Bushveld is unusual in that, despite its great age—more than 2 billion years—it has not been significantly deformed by subsequent tectonic activity. (It has undergone extensive erosion.) Despite years of extensive study in the area, geologists have not reached a consensus about how this igneous complex formed.
What is Bushveld Complex South Africa?
In Precambrian: Layered igneous intrusions. …and most famous is the Bushveld Complex in South Africa, which is 9 km (5.6 miles) thick and covers an area of 66,000 square km (about 25,500 square miles). It was intruded nearly 2.1 billion years ago and is the largest repository of magmatic ore deposits in the world.
Which province is the Bushveld Complex?
It is a large complex covering a major area of the province formerly known as the Transvaal which has since been divided up and the Bushveld Igneous Complex now occurs in the following Provinces: North West, Gauteng, for the western limb and Limpopo and Mpumalanga for the eastern limb.
Where is Lopolith found?
Lopoliths typically consist of large layered intrusions that range in age from Archean to Eocene. Examples include the Duluth gabbro, the Sudbury igneous complex of Ontario, the Bushveld igneous complex of South Africa, the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe, the Skaergaard complex of Greenland and the Humboldt lopolith of Nevada.
What is UG2 ore?
The Merensky Reef is a layer of igneous rock in the Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) in the North West, Limpopo, Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa which together with an underlying layer, the Upper Group 2 Reef (UG2), contains most of the world’s known reserves of platinum group metals (PGMs) or platinum …
What type of rock is lopolith?
noun Geology. a mass of igneous rock formed from magma that did not find its way to the surface but spread laterally into a lenticular body, forcing overlying strata to bulge upward.
What is the meaning of lopolith?
lopolith. / (ˈlɒpəlɪθ) / noun. a saucer- or lens-shaped body of intrusive igneous rock, formed by the penetration of magma between the beds or layers of existing rock and subsequent subsidence beneath the intrusionCompare laccolith.