Delineating the structural controls on the genesis of iron oxide–Cu–Au deposits through implicit modelling: a case study from the E1 Group, Cloncurry District, Australia

2017 ◽  
Vol 453 (1) ◽  
pp. 349-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Case ◽  
Thomas Blenkinsop ◽  
Zhaoshan Chang ◽  
Jan Marten Huizenga ◽  
Richard Lilly ◽  
...  
2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiejun Chen ◽  
Lisheng Liang ◽  
Shiming Tang ◽  
Yanhong Luo ◽  
Yunliang Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

Geophysics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. B13-B22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Leão-Santos ◽  
Yaoguo Li ◽  
Roberto Moraes

Strong hydrothermal alteration modifies rock physical properties in iron oxide-copper-gold deposits (IOCGs) and may result in characteristic signatures detectable in geophysical surveys. Magnetic data are commonly used in characterizing orebodies, and 3D inversions are often used to assist in interpretations. In areas with strong remanence and self-demagnetization, the total magnetization can have directions different from the inducing field direction. This deviation precludes the use of traditional inversion methods. Magnetic amplitude inversion offers one solution to this challenge because the amplitude data are weakly dependent on the magnetization direction. In addition, the low magnetic latitude also imposes difficulty in amplitude data calculation due to the instability in the component conversion in the wavenumber domain. To formulate a practical approach, we present a case study on applying the magnetic amplitude inversion to the Furnas southeast IOCG deposit at the low magnetic latitude in Carajás Mineral Province, Brazil, and demonstrate that the approach can reliably recover an interpretable distribution of effective magnetic susceptibility and identify massive magnetite from hydrothermal alterations associated with the high-grade ore.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. T63-T84 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Austin ◽  
Phillip W. Schmidt ◽  
Clive A. Foss

Magnetite-rich iron oxide copper-gold deposits (IOCGs) are geologically and geochemically complex and present major challenges to geophysical investigation. They often sit beneath significant cover, exhibit magnetic remanence, and suffer from self-demagnetization effects. Because remanence in magnetite-bearing drill core samples is commonly overprinted by drilling, in situ natural remanent magnetization is difficult to measure accurately, and thus IOCGs cannot be modeled definitively using geophysics alone. We examined structural controls on a magnetite-rich IOCG in northwest Queensland and the relationships between structure, alteration, Fe oxides, and mineralization at core to deposit scale. Magnetite within the deposit has a multidomain structure, and thus it would commonly have an in situ magnetization parallel to the earth’s field. In contrast, pyrrhotite has a pseudosingle-domain structure and so it is the predominant carrier of stable remanence within the ore system. Geophysical lineament analyses are used to determine structural controls on mineralization, geophysical filters (e.g., analytic signal amplitude) are used to help define structural extent of the deposit, and basement geochemistry is used to map mineral footprints beneath cover. These techniques identified coincident anomalies at the intersection of north and northwest lineaments. Leapfrog™ interpolations of downhole magnetic susceptibility and Cu, Au, and Fe assay data were used to map the distribution of magnetite, copper, gold, and sulfur in 3D. The analysis revealed that Cu and Au mineralization were coupled with the magnetite net-vein architecture, but that Cu was locally enriched in the east–northeast-trending demagnetized zone. The results from this suite of geophysical, petrophysical, and geochemical techniques were integrated to constrain modeling of the Brumby IOCG. Brumby can be described as a breccia pipe sitting at the intersection of north-striking, east-dipping, and northwest-striking, southeast-dipping structures that plunges moderately to the south–southeast. The breccia pipe was overprinted by a relatively late net-vein magnetite breccia and crosscut by a later, magnetite-destructive, east–northeast-striking fault.


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