Spinifex-textured sills (i.e., veins) characterized by komatiitic magmas that have intruded their own volcanic-piles have long been recognized. For instance, in the early 1970s, Pyke and coworkers, in their classic work at Pyke Hill in Munro Township, noted that not all spinifexbearing ultramafic rocks formed as lava flows, rather some were clearly emplaced as small dikes and sills. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain spinifex-textured sills: intrusion into a cold host, filter pressing, or drainage of residual liquid. However, these do not satisfactorily explain the phenomenon. Field and petrographic observations at Pyke Hill and Serpentine Mountain demonstrate that spinifex-bearing komatiite sills and dikes were emplaced during channel inflation processes when new magma was intruded into a cooler, semi-consolidated but permeable cumulate material. Komatiitic liquids were intruded into the olivine cumulate rocks near the boundary between the spinifex and the cumulate zones of wellorganized to organized komatiite flows. Spinifex-textured sills are generally tabular in morphology, stacked one above another, with curviplanar contacts sub-parallel to stratigraphy. Some sills exhibit complex digitated apophyses. Thinner sills typically have a random olivine spinifex texture similar, though generally composed of coarser crystals, to that of komatiite lava flows. Thicker sills exhibit more complex organization of their constituent crystals characterized by zones of random olivine spinifex, overlying zones of organized coarse spinifex crystals similar to those found in lava flows. They have striking coarse dendritic spinifex zones composed of very large olivine crystals, up to several centimetres long and up to 1 cm wide that are not observed in lava flows. Typically, at the sill margins, the cumulate material of the host flow is composed of euhedral to subhedral olivine crystals that are larger than those distal to the contact. Many of these margin-crystals have either concentric overgrowth shells or dendritic olivine overgrowths that grew from the cumulatesill contact toward the sill interior. The dendrites grew on pre-existing olivine cumulate at the contact in response to a sharp temperature gradient imposed by the intrusion of hot material, whereas the concentric overgrowths formed as new melt percolated into the unconsolidated groundmass of the host-flow cumulate material. Spinifex-textured sills and dikes occur in well-organized to organized flows that are interpreted to have formed by "breakouts" above and peripheral to lava pathways (channels/conduits) as a result of inflation that accompanied voluminous komatiitic eruptions responsible for the construction and channelization of komatiitic flow fields. The spinifex-textured dikes and sills represent komatiitic lava that was originally emplaced into the channel roof during periods of episodic inflation that resulted in lava breakouts and was subsequently trapped in

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Komatiitic rocks occur mainly in Archean greenstone belts, less commonly in Paleoproterozoic volcano-sedimentary belts, and only rarely in younger volcanic settings. As in most other greenstone belts worldwide, komatiitic rocks are locally abundant in the Abitibi greenstone belt but generally represent only a small proportion of the volcanic rocks in the volcanic succession. Although only locally exposed, glacially sculpted exposures of only weakly metamorphosed and mildly deformed komatiites of mineralized and unmineralized komatiites in the Abitibi greenstone belt are among the best in the world, characterized by excellent textural preservation and, in some cases, excellent mineralogical preservation. Komatiitic rocks in the Abitibi greenstone belt occur predominantly within the Pacaud (2750–2735 Ma), Stoughton-Roquemaure (2723–2720 Ma), Kidd-Munro (2720–2710 Ma), and Tisdale (2710–2704 Ma) assemblages, but have recently also been recognized in lesser abundances within the Deloro (2734–2724 Ma) and Porcupine (≤2690–≤2685 Ma) assemblages. Overall, the komatiitic rocks present in these assemblages are characterized by a wide variety of lithofacies (textural, compositional) and flow facies; however, a regional analysis of komatiite physical volcanology reveals some fundamental differences between each of the komatiite-bearing assemblages. The Kidd-Munro and Tisdale komatiite-bearing assemblages contain the largest volumes of komatiitic rocks, in particular thick, highly magnesian cumulate lava channels and channelized sheet flows. This suggests that the magma discharge rates were higher for these assemblages and/or that they formed more proximal to the eruptive site. However, the recently discovered Grasset Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposit hosted within relatively high MgO cumulate rocks that are interpreted to occur within the Deloro assemblage highlights the possibility of the other komatiite-bearing assemblages to contain similarly prospective volcanic and/or subvolcanic facies. Geochemical data indicate that regardless of age or petrogenetic affinity (Al-undepleted vs. Al-depleted vs. Ti-enriched vs. Fe-rich), almost all of the parental magmas were undersaturated in sulfide prior to emplacement and therefore represent favorable magma sources for Ni-Cu-(PGE) mineralization. Volcanological data indicate that almost all komatiite-associated Ni-Cu-(PGE) deposits in the Abitibi greenstone belt appear to be localized in lava channels or channelized sheet flows, which have the capacity to thermomechanically erode S-bearing country rocks and to efficiently transfer metals from the magma to sulfide xenomelts. Three type localities (Spinifex Ridge in La Motte Township, Pyke Hill in Munro Township, and Alexo in Dundonald Township) illustrate how physical volcanology (lava channelization) and stratigraphic environment (S source) need to operate quasi-simultaneously to allow for the genesis of significant amounts of Ni-Cu-(PGE) sulfides within a komatiitic succession. As not all komatiite magma pathways are mineralized, one of the most important challenges is to be able to distinguish potentially mineralized successions from barren successions.