This is distinct from other magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE deposits, where Fe-Ni-Cu sulfide melt accumulates within a subvolcanic feeder dike, sill, or magma chamber.
The genetic model of Kambalda-type Ni-Cu-(PGE) ore deposits is similar that of many other magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE ore deposits: Recent research on the S isotopic compositions of komatiitic sulfides (Bekker et al., 2009) indicates that they lack the non-mass dependent isotope fractionation typical of sulfides formed at the surface during the Archaean, as would be expected if much of the sulfur was sourced from the sedimentary substrate, confirming that the S was derived 'upstream' in the system, not from the local country rocks.
Type II Internal Ores: Some deposits also contain or instead contain disseminated, blebby, or net-textured Metamorphism is nearly ubiquitous within Archaean komatiites.
The massive sulfides tend to move tens to hundreds of meters away from their original depositional position into fold hinges, footwall sediments, faults or become caught up within asymmetric shear zones.
The Redross, Widgie Townsite, Mariners, Wannaway, Dordie North and Miitel nickel gossans were identified generally at or around the time of drilling of the Widgiemoltha area beginning in 1985, and continuing till today.
Gossans of nickel mineralisation, especially massive sulfides, are dominated in the arid Yilgarn Craton by boxworks of goethite, hematite, maghemite and ocher clays.
Likewise, identifying areas where cumulate and channelised flow dominates over apparent flanking thin flow stratigraphy, dominated by multiple thin lava horizons defined by recurrence of A-zone spinifex textured rocks, is effective at regionally vectoring in toward areas with the highest magma throughput.
Why extremely hot and superfluid komatiitic lavas and nickel sulfides would deposit themselves in parallel systems can only be described by Horst-Graben type faulting which is commonly seen at rift zones.
Extremely thick olivine adcumulate piles were interpreted as representing a 'mega' flow channel facies, and it was only upon mining into a low-strain margin of the body at Mount Keith that an intact intrusive-type contact was discovered.
For example, the Maggie Hays and Emily Ann ore deposits, in the Lake Johnston Greenstone Belt, Western Australia, are highly structurally remobilised (up to 600 m into felsic footwall rocks) but are hosted in folded podiform adcumulate to mesocumulate bodies which lack typical spinifex flow-top facies and exhibit an orthocumulate margin.
This may represent a sill or lopolith form of intrusion, not a channelised flow, but structural modification of the contacts precludes a definitive conclusion.