Chromite [(Mg, Fe)Cr2O4] is found in Peridotite from the Earth's mantle. It also occurs in layered ultramafic intrusive rocks. In addition, it is found in metamorphic rocks such as some serpentinites. Is there any importance of chromite-spinel to explain seismic discontinuity at earth transition zone? Or, To explain any other geological feature of earth?
Chromite was also found in the Suizhou meteorite. So, how important is it to explain the geology of other planetary bodies?
It is necessary to note that mineral "chrome-spinel" is well-known and important mineral-satellite of diamond.
See, for instance, the following articles available in the ResearchGate:
Eppelbaum, L.V., Vaksman, V.L., Klepatch, C.A., Modin, I., Kouznetsov, S.V., Surkov, A.V., Korotaeva, N.N., Smirnov, S.A. and Bezlepkin, B.A., 2002. Discovering of diamondiferous association in the Makhtesh Ramon area, Negev desert (Southern Israel). Romanian Journal of Mineral Deposits, 80, 25-28.
Eppelbaum, L.V., Kouznetsov, S.V., Vaksman, V.L., Klepatch, C.A., Smirnov, S.A., Sazonova, L.M., Korotaeva, N.N., Surkov, A.V., Itkis, S.E. and Shemesh, M., 2003. Results of integrated geological-geophysical examination of Makhtesh Ramon area (southern Israel) on diamond-bearing associations. Collection of Selected Papers of the SPIE Conference, Section: Geology and Remote Sensing, Barcelona, Spain, 109-120.
Eppelbaum, L.V., Vaksman, V.L., Kouznetsov, S.V., Sazonova, L.M., Smirnov, S.A., Surkov, A.V., Bezlepkin, B., Katz, Y., Korotaeva, N.N., and Belovitskaya, G., 2006. Discovering of microdiamonds and minerals-satellites in Canyon Makhtesh Ramon (Negev desert, Israel). Doklady Earth Sciences (Springer), 407, No. 2, 202-204.
It has been established by I. D. MACGREC'OR AN'D CHARLES H. SMITH "THE USE OF CHROME SPINEL IN PETROGRAPHIC STUDIES OF UTTRAMAFIC INTRUSIONS' that Chrome spinels are sensitive indicators of compositional variations in a crystallizing magma. In many intrusions they vary widely in chemical
composition, more so than the associated silicate minerals, and may
indicate cryptic zoning which would not be recognized by other studies.
Magmatic petrologists like chromium spinel because it is found in the mantle rocks as well as quite primitive (near-primary) magmas. In mantle rocks, the spinel can give an indication of the amount of melt that has been extracted (we now have to wait for someone like Eric Hellebrand to react and give the reference to his papers); in extrusive basalts, the composition of the spinel is a combination of the fertility of the source rock, the amount of magma that was generated, and the amount of crystal fractionation it has undergone since the melt separated from its source.
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