Distribution of mineral deposits in accreted terranes and cratonal rocks of western United States

1983 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1019-1029 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Albers

The western margin of the conterminous United States, covering roughly 300 000 mi2 (777 000 km2), is an agglomeration of tectonostratigraphic terranes accreted to the North American craton mainly during Mesozoic time. The terranes represent a number of fundamental crustal types: oceanic crust, island-arc crust, mélange, various combinations of the preceding three, batholithic, miogeoclinal, and platform.The distribution patterns of types of mineral deposits show that miogeoclinal terranes of the craton are characterized by replacement and vein-type lead–zinc–silver, skarn tungsten deposits, molybdenum, and tin, whereas accreted terranes contain all the known volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits, all chromite and chert-associated manganese, and all the large gold quartz-vein deposits, except Goldfield, Nevada. Carlin-type disseminated fine-grained gold deposits occur mostly in windows of Paleozoic miogeoclinal rocks in Nevada, but the only known fine-grained gold deposit in California is in very youthful volcanic rocks overlying oceanic-crust terrane. Large bedded-type barite deposits, although in the same general area and showing the same general trend as fine disseminated gold deposits in Nevada, are in allochthonous oceanic terrane. Mercury and antimony are dominantly in accreted terranes but antimony, in particular, also forms important deposits in cratonal rocks. Most of the large iron deposits are in the craton but a few are in accreted island-arc terranes.

2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (8) ◽  
pp. 871-878
Author(s):  
I. K. Pitcairn ◽  
N. T. Arndt

The Kidd–Munro assemblage, Abitibi belt, Canada, is an ultramafic–mafic–felsic volcanic sequence that contains the giant Kidd Creek volcanic-hosted massive sulfide (VMS) deposit. The Kidd basin, 1.6 km northeast of the deposit, contains pervasively brecciated pillowed and massive basalts. The breccia is distinctly different from most breccias in volcanic rocks, which form through volcanic processes or during later deformation or alteration. The Kidd Creek breccia occurs pervasively through otherwise undeformed pillow interiors and margins, and also in localized corridors of particularly intense brecciation. Clasts are angular, up to 4 cm wide, hosted in a very fine-grained matrix, and commonly show jig-saw fit texture. The chemical compositions of the breccia fragments and matrix are generally similar, although the matrix is slightly enriched in high field-strength elements (HFSE) and heavy rare-earth elements (HREE) and depleted in some mobile elements, such as Rb and Ba. The breccia contains altered basaltic clasts and fragments of in-filled amygdales and is crosscut by late-stage quartz–carbonate–sulfide veins. The observations imply that the breccia was formed in-situ, with minimal transport of material, and developed after solidification of the volcanic rocks. In-situ breccias, such as these, are known to form proximal to major fault zones, but no such structure occurs in the vicinity of the Kidd Basin. We suggest the brecciation was caused by the propagation of shock waves from explosive volcanic eruption, perhaps related to the emplacement of felsic volcanic rocks observed in the Kidd Creek Mine. The breccia was subject to enhanced hydrothermal fluid flow, perhaps linked to the formation of the ore deposit.


10.5382/gb.62 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Robb ◽  
Andrew Mitchell

Myanmar is richly endowed in natural resources that include tin, tungsten, copper, gold, zinc, lead, nickel, and silver, as well as gemstones. The material covered over a nine-day field trip explores the country’s complex geology, which reflects a collisional history stretching from the Late Triassic to at least Miocene, sited at the eastern end of the India-Asia suture. The country can be divided into three principal metallotects: the Wuntho-Popa magmatic arc, with granites and associated porphyry-type and epithermal Cu-Au mineralization; the Slate Belt (also called the Mogok-Mandalay-Mergui Belt), with multiple precollisional I-type and postcollisional S-type crustal melt granites that host significant tin-tungsten mineralization, and which also are host to a number of orogenic gold deposits; and the Shan Plateau with massive sulfide-type and also MVT-style lead-zinc-silver deposits.


1991 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Ansdell ◽  
T. Kurtis Kyser

The Laurel Lake Au–Ag deposit is situated 25 km southwest of Flin Flon in the Proterozoic Flin Flon Domain and consists of branching quartz–muscovite–pyrite–tennantite–chalcopyrite–sphalerite–galena–electrum–carbonate veins (stage 1) surrounded by a widespread zone of sericitized and pyritized Amisk Group felsic volcanic rocks. The deposit has been deformed and metamorphosed during the Hudsonian orogeny and is crosscut by nonauriferous quartz–dolomite–tourmaline–pyrite veins (stage 2). The timing of mineralization, the lack of obvious relation to a major shear zone, and high base metal sulphide and Ag/Au ratio (5:1) distinguish this deposit from epigenetic mesothermal gold deposits in the Flin Flon Domain. Fluid inclusion and stable-isotope data indicate that the mineralizing fluids had a high temperature (>300 °C), were saline (>10.3 wt.% NaCl equivalent) and CO2 bearing and had an isotopic composition similar to modified seawater. This fluid leached sulphur, base metals, and precious metals as it interacted with Amisk Group volcanic rocks. The hydrogen isotopic compositions of fine-grained muscovites in the surrounding altered felsic volcanic rocks have been reset during later metamorphism, whereas the coarse stage 1 vein muscovites have partially preserved their primary hydrogen isotopic compositions and fluorine contents. Stage 2 veins were deposited from low-salinity (<6.4 wt.% NaCl equivalent), CO2-bearing fluids, which also have the hydrogen and oxygen isotopic compositions of modified seawater. The Laurel Lake deposit has fluid, vein, and alteration characteristics that distinguish it from both epithermal and mesothermal deposits, and they can be explained by the involvement of modified seawater.


2015 ◽  
Vol 52 (7) ◽  
pp. 466-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Barresi ◽  
J.L. Nelson ◽  
J. Dostal ◽  
R. Friedman

Understanding the development of island arcs that accreted to the North American craton is critical to deciphering the complex geological history of the Canadian Cordillera. In the case of the Hazelton arc (part of the Stikine terrane, or Stikinia) in northwestern British Columbia, understanding arc evolution also bears on the formation of spatially associated porphyry Cu–Au, epithermal, and volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. The Hazelton Group is a regionally extensive, long-lived, and exceptionally thick Upper Triassic to Middle Jurassic volcano-sedimentary succession considered to record a successor arc that was built upon the Paleozoic and Triassic Stikine and Stuhini arcs. In central Stikinia, near Terrace, British Columbia, the lower Hazelton Group (Telkwa Formation) comprises three volcanic-intrusive complexes (Mt. Henderson, Mt. O’Brien, and Kitselas) that, at their thickest, constitute almost 16 km of volcanic stratigraphy. Basal Telkwa Formation conglomerates and volcanic rocks were deposited unconformably on Triassic and Paleozoic arc-related basement. New U–Pb zircon ages indicate that volcanism initiated by ca. 204 Ma (latest Triassic). Detrital zircon populations from the basal conglomerate contain abundant 205–233 Ma zircons, derived from regional unroofing of older Triassic intrusions. Eleven kilometres higher in the section, ca. 194 Ma, rhyolites show that arc construction continued for >10 million years. Strata of the Nilkitkwa Formation (upper Hazelton Group) with a U–Pb zircon age of 178.90 ± 0.28 Ma represent waning island-arc volcanism. Telkwa Formation volcanic rocks have bimodal silica concentrations ranging from 48.1 to 62.8 wt.% and 72.3 to 79.0 wt.% and display characteristics of subduction-related magmatism (i.e., calc-alkaline differentiation with low Nb and Ti and high Th concentrations). Mafic to intermediate rocks form a differentiated suite that ranges from high-Al basalt to medium- to high-K andesite. They were derived from hydrous melting of isotopically juvenile spinel lherzolite in the mantle wedge and from subsequent fractional crystallization. Compared to basalts and andesites (εNd = +5 to +5.5), rhyolites have higher positive εNd values (+5.9 to +6.0) and overlapping incompatible element concentrations, indicating that they are not part of the same differentiation suite. Rather, the rhyolites formed from anatexis of arc crust, probably caused by magmatic underplating of the crust. This study documents a temporal and spatial co-occurrence of Hazelton Group volcanic rocks with a belt of economic Cu–Au porphyry deposits (ca. 205–195 Ma) throughout northwestern Stikinia. The coeval relationship is attributed to crustal underplating and intra-arc extension associated with slab rollback during renewed or reconfigured subduction beneath Stikinia, following the demise of the Stuhini arc in the Late Norian.


Author(s):  
Gejing Li ◽  
D. R. Peacor ◽  
D. S. Coombs ◽  
Y. Kawachi

Recent advances in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and analytical electron microscopy (AEM) have led to many new insights into the structural and chemical characteristics of very finegrained, optically homogeneous mineral aggregates in sedimentary and very low-grade metamorphic rocks. Chemical compositions obtained by electron microprobe analysis (EMPA) on such materials have been shown by TEM/AEM to result from beam overlap on contaminant phases on a scale below resolution of EMPA, which in turn can lead to errors in interpretation and determination of formation conditions. Here we present an in-depth analysis of the relation between AEM and EMPA data, which leads also to the definition of new mineral phases, and demonstrate the resolution power of AEM relative to EMPA in investigations of very fine-grained mineral aggregates in sedimentary and very low-grade metamorphic rocks.Celadonite, having end-member composition KMgFe3+Si4O10(OH)2, and with minor substitution of Fe2+ for Mg and Al for Fe3+ on octahedral sites, is a fine-grained mica widespread in volcanic rocks and volcaniclastic sediments which have undergone low-temperature alteration in the oceanic crust and in burial metamorphic sequences.


PROMINE ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Retno Anjarwati ◽  
Arifudin Idrus ◽  
Lucas Donny Setijadji

The regional tectonic conditions of the KSK Contract of Work are located in the mid-Tertiary magmatic arc (Carlile and Mitchell, 1994) which host a number of epithermal gold deposits (eg, Kelian, Indon, Muro) and significant prospects such as Muyup, Masupa Ria, Gunung Mas and Mirah. Copper-gold mineralization in the KSK Contract of Work is associated with a number of intrusions that have occupied the shallow-scale crust at the Mesozoic metamorphic intercellular junction to the south and continuously into the Lower Tertiary sediment toward the water. This intrusion is interpreted to be part of the Oligocene arc of Central Kalimantan (in Carlile and Mitchell 1994) Volcanic rocks and associated volcanoes are older than intrusions, possibly aged Cretaceous and exposed together with all three contacts (Carlile and Mitchell, 1994) some researchers contribute details about the geological and mineralogical background, and some papers for that are published for the Beruang Kanan region and beyond but no one can confirm the genesis type of the Beruang Kanan region The mineralization of the Beruang Kanan area is generally composed by high yields of epithermal sulphide mineralization. with Cu-Au mineralization This high epithermal sulphide deposition coats the upper part of the Cu-Au porphyry precipitate associated with mineralization processes that are generally controlled by the structure


1972 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvert C. Bristol

X-ray powder diffraction methods, successful in quantitative determination of silicate minerals in fine-grained rocks, have been applied to the determination of calcite, dolomite, and magnesite in greenschist facies meta-volcanic rocks. Internal standard graphs employing two standards (NaCl and Mo) have been determined.Carbonate mineral modes (calcite and dolomite) for 6 greenschist facies meta-volcanic rocks obtained by the X-ray powder method have been compared to normative carbonate mineral contents calculated for the same rocks. This comparison showed a maximum variation of 7.7 wt.% between the X-ray modes and the normative carbonate mineral contents of the rocks. Maximum standard deviation for the X-ray modes of these rocks was equivalent to 4.4 wt.%.


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