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EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF LIQUID IMMISCIBILITY IN A PORTION OF THE SYSTEM Fe-Ni-Cu-S USING HIGH GRAVITATIONAL ACCELERATION

James M. Brenan and Nadia Haider^*

Department of Geology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

David Andrews

Vale-Inco Ltd., Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Corresponding author: e-mail, j.brenan{at}utoronto.ca

Experimental results reported by Ballhaus et al. (2001) suggest there may be some natural sulfide liquid compositions in equilibrium with primitive mafic magmas that encounter a field of immiscibility at superliquidus conditions. In this communication, we present results of static and high acceleration experiments done using one of the bulk compositions for which immiscibility is reported (their MS-11), as well as mixtures of the alleged conjugate melts. At all conditions investigated, melts quenched to a homogeneous distribution of quench phases, with no evidence for compositional separation over the length scale of the sample. These results indicate that the MS-11 composition produced a homogeneous liquid during the experiment, and therefore we could not verify the two-phase field reported by Ballhaus et al. (2001). We suggest caution when evoking sulfide liquid immiscibility as a differentiation mechanism during magmatic sulfide evolution.