Rutile in eclogites as a mineral resource in the Sunnfjord Region, Western Norway.

Abstract

The world's resources of the primary titanium raw materials ilmenite and rutile are very large. However, there is a lack of high-grade, high-quality ilmenite deposits as well as good rutile deposits. Particular focus has been given to rutilebearing eclogites in the Sunnfjord region of western Norway, due to a combination of factors such as high rutile content over significant volumes of rock and favourable rutile grainsize. Eclogites in the Sunnfjord region are found in a number of elongated lenses up to 3-4 km long, surrounded by gneisses of amphibolitic to granite composition, as well as numerous smaller eclogite bodies and eclogitised mafic layers in gneisses. The eclogites originated by high-pressure and temperature alteration of Proterozoic, Fe-Ti rich, gabbroic rocks, and were strongly deformed under eclogite-facies netamorphism and thereafter variably affected by retrograde processes. Eclogites in which conversation of ilmenite to rutle was complete and in which this mineral assemblage was negligibly affected by subsequent retrograde processes, are those of greatest economic potential. An example of such an eclogite is the Engebøfjellet eclogite on the north side of Førdefjord, Naustdal commune.