COMPUTER MODELING OF ORE-BODY FORMATION BY A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH - SOME INITIAL RESULTS PERTAINING TO THE COOLING OF BURIED BODIES OF MOLTEN ROCK (MAGMA CHAMBERS) AND ATTENDANT HYDROTHERMAL CIRCULATION

The initial efforts of a computational program at Rhodes University to model the formation of mineral deposits are reported here. The object of the exercise is to determine theoretically the preferential spatia l distribution of minerals of economic interest arising from magmatic and hydrothermal processes;for instance, to yield useful constraints s uch as the evolution of the 350 degrees C isotherm - important to the deposition of gold - as hear is pushed out into the country rock and r etreats during back cooling. It is apparent from our purely theoretica l calculations that, even for simple systems, considerable complexity is to be expected and the modelling has allowed the advance of explana tions for mineralisation, whose formation has been enigmatic, such as some tin and molybdenum deposits. If such information saves drilling a n exploration hole, then the computational effort has paid for itself: Modelling such as this undertaken for geology of interest is relative ly inexpensive compared to other assessment techniques and it appears that it will be a valuable tool to add to and complement time-tested p rocedures.