The reliability of ∼2.9 Ga old Witwatersrand banded iron formations (South Africa) as archives for Mesoarchean seawater: Evidence from REE and Nd isotope systematics

• Major and trace elements allow to characterize the purity of Witwatersrand BIFs.
• BIFs can be compared to near-contemporaneous Pongola and Pietersburg BIFs.
• REY and Nd isotopes reveal syn- (detrital), but no post-depositional alterations.
• εNd(t) values of the Witwatersrand seawater endmembers overlap with Pongola BIFs.

Pure marine chemical sediments, such as (Banded) Iron Formations, (B)IFs, are archives of geochemical proxies for the composition of Precambrian seawater and may provide information about the ancient hydrosphere-atmosphere system. We here present rare earths and yttrium (REY) and high precision Sm–Nd isotope data of ∼2.90 Ga old Superior-type BIFs from the Witwatersrand Supergroup, South Africa, and compare those with data for near-contemporaneous BIFs from the correlative Pongola Supergroup (Superior-type BIF) and from the Pietersburg Greenstone Belt (Algoma-type IF), respectively. All Witwatersrand samples studied display the typical general REY distribution of Archean seawater, but their REY anomalies are less pronounced and their immobile element concentrations are higher than those of other pure (B)IFs. These observations indicate the presence of significant amounts of detrital aluminosilicates in the Witwatersrand BIFs and question the reliability of the Contorted Bed and Water Tower BIFs (Parktown Formation, West Rand Group) as archives of Mesoarchean seawater. Significant post-depositional alteration of the REY budget and the Sm–Nd isotope system is not observed. The Nd isotopic compositions of the purest BIF samples, i.e. the most reliable archives for Witwatersrand seawater, show initial εNd values between −3.95 and −2.25. This range is more negative than what is observed in ambient shales, indicating a decoupling of suspended and dissolved loads in the “near-shore” Witwatersrand Basin seawater. However, εNd range overlaps with that of the correlative Pongola BIF (Alexander et al., 2008). The deeper-water Algoma-type Pietersburg BIF shows more positive (i.e. more mantle-like) εNd2.9Ga values, supporting the hypothesis that a significant amount of its REY inventory was derived from black smoker-style, high-temperature hydrothermal fluids that had altered seafloor basalts. In marked contrast, the dissolved REY budgets (including the Nd isotopic compositions) of the Witwatersrand and Pongola seawater, however, were dominated by similar terrigenous REY sources from the Kaapvaal Craton.