Isotopic evidence for complex Pb sources in the Ag–Pb–Zn–Au veins of the Kokanee Range, southeastern British Columbia

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georges Beaudoin ◽  
D. F. Sangster ◽  
C. I. Godwin

In the Kokanee Range, more than 370 Ag–Pb–Zn–Au vein and replacement deposits are hosted by the Middle Jurassic Nelson batholith and surrounding Cambrian to Triassic metasedimentary rocks. The Kokanee Range forms the hanging wall of the Slocan Lake Fault, an Eocene, east-dipping, low-angle normal fault. The Pb isotopic compositions of galenas permit the deposits to be divided into four groups that form linear arrays in tridimensional Pb isotopic space, each group having a distinct geographic distribution that crosses geological boundaries. The Kokanee group Pb is derived from a mixture of local upper crustal country rocks. Ainsworth group Pb and Sandon group Pb plot along a mixing line between a lower crustal Pb reservoir and the upper crustal Pb reservoir. The Ainsworth group Pb isotopic signature is markedly lower crustal, whereas the Sandon group Pb is slightly lower crustal. The Bluebell group Pb plots along a mixing line between a depleted upper mantle Pb reservoir and the lower crustal Pb reservoir.The geographic distribution and the Pb isotopic composition of each group probably reflect deep structures that permitted mixing of lower crustal, upper crustal, and mantle Pb by hydrothermal fluids. Segments of, or fluids derived from, the lower crust and the upper mantle were leached by, or mixed with, evolved meteoric water convecting in the upper crust. Fracture permeability, hydrothermal fluid flow, and mineralization resulted from Eocene crustal extension in southeastern British Columbia.

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Beaudoin ◽  
J. C. Roddick ◽  
D. F. Sangster

The Ag–Pb–Zn–Au vein and replacement deposits of the Kokanee Range, southeastern British Columbia, are hosted by the Middle Jurassic Nelson batholith and surrounding Cambrian to Triassic metasedimentary rocks in the hanging wall of the transcrustal Slocan Lake Fault, Field relations indicate that mineralization is younger than the Nelson batholith and a Middle Jurassic foliation in the Ainsworth area but coeval or older than Eocene unroofing of the Valhalla metamorphic core complex in the footwall of the Slocan Lake Fault. Lamprophyre and gabbro dykes are broadly coeval with mineralization and have biotite and hornblende K–Ar ages defining a short-lived Middle Eocene alkaline magmatic event between 52 and 40 Ma. An older, Early Cretaceous alkaline magmatic event (141 – 129 Ma) is possible but incompletely documented.K–Ar and step-heating 40Ar/39Ar analyses on hydrothermal vein and alteration muscovite indicate that hydrothermal fluids were precipitating vein and replacement deposits 58–59 Ma ago. Crosscutting relationships with lamprophyre dykes indicate the Kokanee Range hydrothermal system lasted for more than 15 Ma. Eocene crustal extension resulted in a high heat flow and structures which were probably responsible for hydrothermal fluid movement and flow paths.A 100 Ma time interval is documented between batholith emplacement and spatially associated mineralization, ruling out any genetic link between the two. Similar large age differences between granite intrusion and peripheral mineralization have recently been documented for two world-sea le Ag–Pb–Zn vein districts, which suggest that spatial association between granite and Ag–Pb–Zn mineralization is not sufficient to infer a genetic link.


2020 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Félix Djerossem ◽  
Julien Berger ◽  
Olivier Vanderhaeghe ◽  
Moussa Isseini ◽  
Jérôme Ganne ◽  
...  

This paper presents new petrological, geochemical, isotopic (Nd) and geochronological data on magmatic rocks from the poorly known southern Ouaddaï massif, located at the southern edge of the so-called Saharan metacraton. This area is made of greenschist to amphibolite facies metasediments intruded by large pre- to syn-tectonic batholiths of leucogranites and an association of monzonite, granodiorite and biotite granite forming a late tectonic high-K calc-alkaline suite. U-Pb zircon dating yields ages of 635 ± 3 Ma and 613 ± 8 Ma on a peraluminous biotite-leucogranite (containing numerous inherited Archean and Paleoproterozoic zircon cores) and a muscovite-leucogranite, respectively. Geochemical fingerprints are very similar to some evolved Himalayan leucogranites suggesting their parental magmas were formed after muscovite and biotite dehydration melting of metasedimentary rocks. A biotite-granite sample belonging to the late tectonic high-K to shoshonitic suite contains zircon rims that yield an age of 540 ± 5 Ma with concordant inherited cores crystallized around 1050 Ma. Given the high-Mg# (59) andesitic composition of the intermediate pyroxene-monzonite, the very similar trace-element signature between the different rock types and the unradiogenic isotopic signature for Nd, the late-kinematic high-K to shoshonitic rocks formed after melting of the enriched mantle and further differentiation in the crust. These data indicate that the southern Ouaddaï was part of the Pan-African belt. It is proposed that it represents a continental back-arc basin characterized by a high-geothermal gradient during Early Ediacaran leading to anatexis of middle to lower crustal levels. After tectonic inversion during the main Pan-African phase, late kinematic high-K to shoshonitic plutons emplaced during the final post-collisional stage.


2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
D J White ◽  
M D Thomas ◽  
A G Jones ◽  
J Hope ◽  
B Németh ◽  
...  

A summary and comparison of geophysical data and models for the Trans-Hudson Orogen in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan are presented. Magnetic total field and Bouguer gravity maps are used to define the along-strike extension of geological domains of the orogen exposed on the Canadian Shield, and a two-dimensional density model is produced, which accounts for the observed variations of the Bouguer gravity field across the orogen. An 800-km-long crustal section across the entire continent–continent collision zone, including the edges of the bounding cratonic blocks, is presented. It incorporates seismic reflectivity, seismic velocities, resistivity, and density models. Key results include (1) evidence for west-vergent crustal stacking and exhumation in the eastern Trans-Hudson Orogen in the form of preserved Moho topography and the presence of higher grade (higher velocity) rocks in the hanging wall of an east-dipping crustal stack; (2) definition of the eastward extent of the Archean Sask craton in the subsurface based on distinct lower crustal properties; and (3) 400 m of present-day surface topography and 6–8 km of relief on the Moho are isostatically compensated mainly within the upper mantle by a westward increase in upper mantle temperatures by 40–155 °C and (or) 16–107 km of thinning of the mantle lithosphere.


2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
J D Laberge ◽  
D RM Pattison

The Grand Forks complex, in the southern Omineca belt of British Columbia, is a fault-bounded tectonic window exposing Proterozoic sediments and associated mafic rocks metamorphosed to upper amphibolite to granulite facies. Its western margin is marked by the Granby fault, an Eocene west-dipping, low-angle, normal fault characterized by brittle deformation. The metasediments of the Grand Forks complex consist of migmatitic paragneiss containing a peak metamorphic assemblage of garnet + cordierite + sillimanite + K-feldspar ± biotite + quartz. Pressure–temperature conditions for this assemblage are 800 ± 35 °C and 5.8 ± 0.6 kbar (1 kbar = 100 MPa). Resorption of garnet to cordierite ± spinel suggests nearly isothermal decompression of about 2 kbar from peak conditions, interpreted to have occurred prior to normal displacement on the Granby fault. Laser ablation U–Pb dating of monazite from the metasediments suggests a dominant episode of Late Cretaceous metamorphism at 84 ± 3 Ma, with evidence for earlier episodes of Cretaceous metamorphism at 119 ± 3 and 104 ± 3 Ma. Early Tertiary recrystallization at 51 ± 2 Ma is coeval with the emplacement of the nearby Coryell plutonic suite. In the hanging wall of the Granby fault, allochthonous sedimentary and volcanic rocks of Quesnel terrane contain mineral assemblages indicative of the upper greenschist to lower amphibolite facies. Pressure–temperature conditions are estimated at 425 ± 40 °C and 2.3 ± 0.7 kbar. The throw (vertical displacement) on the Eocene Granby fault is estimated to be on the order of 5 km. While significant, the fault cannot account for the entire amount of tectonic uplift of the core complex.


1981 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 944-958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall R. Parrish

High-grade metasedimentary rocks, probably of both early Paleozoic and late Paleozoic – Triassic ages, underlie an area termed the Nemo Lakes belt between Slocan and Arrow Lakes in the northern Valhalla Range, southeastern British Columbia. The rocks have experienced two possibly related periods of major folding. Phase 1, accompanied and outlasted by metamorphism at P–T conditions of 5.0–6.8 kbar (500–680 MPa) and 630–680 °C, involved emplacement of ultramafic rocks, major faulting, and folding. Phase 2 involved large-scale inclined to upright folds which were dominantly south-verging, deforming the phase 1 fabric. Both phases probably occurred in the Middle to Late Jurassic, as part of the Columbian Orogeny.Rocks lithologically and structurally similar to those of the Nemo Lakes belt are found across the Rodd Creek fault near the Columbia River and extend the general continuity of the belt into the Shuswap metamorphic complex.Plutonic rocks, some of which bracket the movement on the Rodd Creek fault, the southern extension of the Columbia River fault zone, range in age from Middle Jurassic to EoceneIn the valley of Slocan Lake, a major normal fault is postulated on structural and metamorphic grounds and may be related to the north–south arching of the Valhalla gneiss complex. It is suggested that this arching and uplift, which followed phase 2 deformation, produced both the fault and a zone of cataclasis on the eastern side of the complex, and gave rise to its domal shape.


1969 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 1245-1261 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Caner ◽  
P. A. Camfield ◽  
F. Andersen ◽  
E. R. Niblett

Five magnetotelluric stations were operated in two clusters in southern British Columbia and Alberta, in order to determine the conductivity structures in each of the two main regions delineated by geomagnetic depth-sounding. A wide period range was covered (20 to 7500 seconds), to permit resolution of structure at lower crustal and upper mantle depths.At the eastern cluster (Pincher, Fernie), a moderately conducting zone (30–50 ohm-meters) is defined starting at depth 30–35 km and extending to a depth of at least 100 km. At the western cluster (Penticton, Osoyoos, Grand Forks) a conducting layer (10 ± 5 ohm-meters) starts at depth 15 ± 5 km; below this layer (of thickness 20–40 km) the resistivity increases to a value of the same order (30–50 ohm-meters) as at the eastern cluster.


2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (37) ◽  
pp. 9820-9825 ◽  
Author(s):  
George A. Thompson ◽  
Tom Parsons

In the Basin and Range extensional province of the western United States, coseismic offsets, under the influence of gravity, display predominantly subsidence of the basin side (fault hanging wall), with comparatively little or no uplift of the mountainside (fault footwall). A few decades later, geodetic measurements [GPS and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR)] show broad (∼100 km) aseismic uplift symmetrically spanning the fault zone. Finally, after millions of years and hundreds of fault offsets, the mountain blocks display large uplift and tilting over a breadth of only about 10 km. These sparse but robust observations pose a problem in that the coesismic uplifts of the footwall are small and inadequate to raise the mountain blocks. To address this paradox we develop finite-element models subjected to extensional and gravitational forces to study time-varying deformation associated with normal faulting. Stretching the model under gravity demonstrates that asymmetric slip via collapse of the hanging wall is a natural consequence of coseismic deformation. Focused flow in the upper mantle imposed by deformation of the lower crust localizes uplift, which is predicted to take place within one to two decades after each large earthquake. Thus, the best-preserved topographic signature of earthquakes is expected to occur early in the postseismic period.


1987 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 1679-1687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dante Canil ◽  
Mark Brearley ◽  
Christopher M. Scarfe

One hundred mantle xenoliths were collected from a hawaiite flow of Miocene–Pliocene age near Rayfield River, south-central British Columbia. The massive host hawaiite contains subrounded xenoliths that range in size from 1 to 10 cm and show protogranular textures. Both Cr-diopside-bearing and Al-augite-bearing xenoliths are represented. The Cr-diopside-bearing xenolith suite consists of spinel lherzolite (64%), dunite (12%), websterite (12%), harzburgite (9%), and olivine websterite (3%). Banding and veining on a centimetre scale are present in four xenoliths. Partial melting at the grain boundaries of clinopyroxene is common and may be due to natural partial melting in the upper mantle, heating by the host magma during transport, or decompression during ascent.Microprobe analyses of the constituent minerals show that most of the xenoliths are well equilibrated. Olivine is Fo89 to Fo92, orthopyroxene is En90, and Cr diopside is Wo47En48Fs5. More Fe-rich pyroxene compositions are present in some of the websterite xenoliths. The Mg/(Mg + Fe2+) and Cr/(Cr + Al + Fe3+) ratios in spinel are uniform in individual xenoliths, but they vary from xenolith to xenolith. Equilibration temperatures for the xenoliths are 860–980 °C using the Wells geothermometer. The depth of equilibration estimated for the xenoliths using geophysical and phase equilibrium constraints is 30–40 km.


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