The manganese ore of the Hotazel Formation in the Kalahari Manganese Field, which has been thrust along the Blackridge thrust fault, has been subjected to various degrees of pre-thrusting hydrothermal and post-thrusting supergene alteration. Coarse-grained apatite, which appears to be formed under supergene conditions on textural grounds, is present in the thrusted manganese ore in previously unrecorded abundances. U-Pb dating of this apatite within the thrusted manganese ore has placed the onset of chemical weathering of the succession at a 77 ± 7.5 Ma, approximately 35 million years earlier than previously thought for the area. This implies that erosion along the Post-African I land surface, as well as the effects of supergene alteration in the Kalahari Manganese Field must have commenced within the late Cretaceous Period, subsequent to earlier erosion along the African land surface.

Uranium-Pb dating of unusual coarse-grained apatite crystals from hydrothermal dolostone breccia in the barite-rich Magcobar zone at the Silvermines deposit, Ireland, indicates an age of 331 ± 5.6 Ma for hydrothermal alteration. This age is in agreement with an Re-Os age on pyrite-sphalerite but differs from previous estimates that were based on palemomagnetism and sphalerite Rb-Sr geochronology at Silvermines. The new U-Pb age indicates the deposit largely formed epigenetically rather than as a synsedimentary deposit. The trace element composition of the apatite provides additional constraints on the geochemical evolution of the Silvermines hydrothermal system indicating that it was initiated with the expulsion of oxidizing fluids responsible for early hematite-silica precipitation. This was followed by the formation of hydrothermal dolostone breccias containing barite and the apatite dated here. The infiltration of metal-bearing hydrothermal fluids, likely derived from the basement, overlapped and followed the development of hydrothermal dolostone breccias, interacting with Carboniferous seawater during dolomitization and barite precipitation. Near-sea-floor biogenic activity, possibly enhanced due to escape of hydrothermal fluids, resulted in the reduction of seawater sulfate and formation of the sulfide-bearing fluids that facilitated the development of the Silvermines Zn-Pb deposit.

The Paleoproterozoic Kalahari Manganese Field is the largest known land-based manganese (Mn) deposit on Earth and comprises five erosional relics of the iron- and manganese-rich Hotazel Formation. A total of 19 manganese ore samples from the lower manganese ore horizon of the Hotazel Formation were selected for analysis based on their relative metasomatic alteration states. These samples range from primary diagenetic, classic supergene enriched, hydrothermally enriched (Wessels-type ore) and thrusted manganese ore. When normalised to Post-Archaean Australian shale composites, rare earth elemental analyses on the selected samples indicate significant relative enrichments within the thrusted manganese ore, an ore type that hasn’t been studied from a geochemical point of view, so far. A comparison between these respective enrichments and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios indicates a distinct link between REE enrichments and associated alteration events, and a progressive increase in ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotope values. An isotopic relationship between fluid infiltration events and REE redistribution within the Hotazel Formation has been established, highlighting unique isotope signatures necessary in better defining and characterising metasomatism within the Paleoproterozoic Kalahari Manganese Field.