The development of an open pit mine at the Endeavour 42 (E42) epithermal gold deposit, situated in the Junee-Narromine Volcanic Belt of the Ordovician Macquarie Arc, central New South Wales, has provided a 3D view of the structurally controlled deposit which was hitherto not available due to the paucity of outcrop in the region. Outcropping geological relationships present a complicated history of overprinting structural deformation and vein events, including the spatial characterization of the gold-mineralizing system. Host rocks consisting of interbedded sedimentary and resedimented volcaniclastic facies, trachyandesite and porphyritic andesite lavas and intrusions (coherent and autoclastic facies), intruded by a large diorite sill, were initially tilted and faulted, followed by the emplacement of multiple dyke phases along faults. Economic gold mineralization at E42 is restricted to faults, fault-hosted breccias, and veins, and was deposited over a period spanning two distinct structural regimes. Early gold-bearing veins are steeply dipping and interpreted as forming coevally along two sets of faults and dykes within a tensional stress regime. High grade fault-hosted, hydrothermally cemented breccia intervals are included temporally with early gold-bearing veins based on comparable mineralogy and steep, fault parallel orientations. Crosscutting the early steep gold-bearing vein sets are two populations of coeval inclined gold-bearing veins, dipping moderately to the southwest and northwest, respectively, which formed in a compressional stress regime with tension directed subvertically. The E42 epithermal deposit likely developed in the period of overall crustal extension, ca. 443-433 Ma, following Phase 1 of the Late Ordovician – Early Silurian Benambran Orogeny. The generation of permeability, styles of fracture propagation, and the reactivation of pre-existing planes of weakness in the rock package are key factors in the development and current geometry of the E42 gold deposit. High grade veins and faults are commonly flanked by sericite-quartz ± carbonate alteration haloes, which exhibit consistent geochemical patterns for metals and pathfinder elements, both laterally away from structures, and vertically within the deposit. Au, Ag, As, Hg, Sb, Tl, Cu, Pb, and Zn, all display increasing concentrations towards high-grade structures, as well as higher up in the epithermal system, with varying dispersion haloes.

The development of an open pit mine at the Endeavour 42 (E42) epithermal gold deposit, situated in the Junee-Narromine Volcanic Belt of the Ordovician Macquarie Arc, central New South Wales, has provided a 3D view of the structurally controlled deposit which was hitherto not available due to the paucity of outcrop in the region. Outcropping geological relationships present a complicated history of overprinting structural deformation and vein events, including the spatial characterization of the gold-mineralizing system. Host rocks consisting of interbedded sedimentary and resedimented volcaniclastic facies, trachyandesite and porphyritic andesite lavas and intrusions (coherent and autoclastic facies), intruded by a large diorite sill, were initially tilted and faulted, followed by the emplacement of multiple dyke phases along faults. Economic gold mineralization at E42 is restricted to faults, fault-hosted breccias, and veins, and was deposited over a period spanning two distinct structural regimes. Early gold-bearing veins are steeply dipping and interpreted as forming coevally along two sets of faults and dykes within a tensional stress regime. High grade fault-hosted, hydrothermally cemented breccia intervals are included temporally with early gold-bearing veins based on comparable mineralogy and steep, fault parallel orientations. Crosscutting the early steep gold-bearing vein sets are two populations of coeval inclined gold-bearing veins, dipping moderately to the southwest and northwest, respectively, which formed in a compressional stress regime with tension directed subvertically. The E42 epithermal deposit likely developed in the period of overall crustal extension, ca. 443-433 Ma, following Phase 1 of the Late Ordovician – Early Silurian Benambran Orogeny. The generation of permeability, styles of fracture propagation, and the reactivation of pre-existing planes of weakness in the rock package are key factors in the development and current geometry of the E42 gold deposit. High grade veins and faults are commonly flanked by sericite-quartz ± carbonate alteration haloes, which exhibit consistent geochemical patterns for metals and pathfinder elements, both laterally away from structures, and vertically within the deposit. Au, Ag, As, Hg, Sb, Tl, Cu, Pb, and Zn, all display increasing concentrations towards high-grade structures, as well as higher up in the epithermal system, with varying dispersion haloes.

The development of an open pit mine at the Endeavour 42 (E42) epithermal gold deposit, situated in the Junee-Narromine Volcanic Belt of the Ordovician Macquarie Arc, central New South Wales, has provided a 3D view of the structurally controlled deposit which was hitherto not available due to the paucity of outcrop in the region. Outcropping geological relationships present a complicated history of overprinting structural deformation and vein events, including the spatial characterization of the gold-mineralizing system. Host rocks consisting of interbedded sedimentary and resedimented volcaniclastic facies, trachyandesite and porphyritic andesite lavas and intrusions (coherent and autoclastic facies), intruded by a large diorite sill, were initially tilted and faulted, followed by the emplacement of multiple dyke phases along faults. Economic gold mineralization at E42 is restricted to faults, fault-hosted breccias, and veins, and was deposited over a period spanning two distinct structural regimes. Early gold-bearing veins are steeply dipping and interpreted as forming coevally along two sets of faults and dykes within a tensional stress regime. High grade fault-hosted, hydrothermally cemented breccia intervals are included temporally with early gold-bearing veins based on comparable mineralogy and steep, fault parallel orientations. Crosscutting the early steep gold-bearing vein sets are two populations of coeval inclined gold-bearing veins, dipping moderately to the southwest and northwest, respectively, which formed in a compressional stress regime with tension directed subvertically. The E42 epithermal deposit likely developed in the period of overall crustal extension, ca. 443-433 Ma, following Phase 1 of the Late Ordovician – Early Silurian Benambran Orogeny. The generation of permeability, styles of fracture propagation, and the reactivation of pre-existing planes of weakness in the rock package are key factors in the development and current geometry of the E42 gold deposit. High grade veins and faults are commonly flanked by sericite-quartz ± carbonate alteration haloes, which exhibit consistent geochemical patterns for metals and pathfinder elements, both laterally away from structures, and vertically within the deposit. Au, Ag, As, Hg, Sb, Tl, Cu, Pb, and Zn, all display increasing concentrations towards high-grade structures, as well as higher up in the epithermal system, with varying dispersion haloes. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

The Alto Chicama district, Central Andean Cordillera Occidental, La Libertad, northern Perú, hosts the 14 M oz, Miocene Lagunas Norte high-sulphidation epithermal Au-(Ag) deposit (Latitude 7° 56ʹ30ʺ S; Longitude 78°14ʹ50ʺ W), in addition to several important, epithermal and mesothermal precious ± base-metal vein systems and porphyry Cu-Au-(Mo) deposits and prospects. The district is underlain by lower Oligocene-to-Middle Miocene, subaerial, Calipuy Supergroup volcanic rocks, unconformably overlying Upper Jurassic – Lower Cretaceous marine sedimentary strata affected by late Eocene-early Oligocene thin-skinned fold and thrust deformation. Mineralization at Lagunas Norte is largely hosted by intensely-folded Valanginian Chimú Formation quartz arenite, but extends into overlying, weakly-deformed, Lower Miocene dacitic volcaniclastic deposits. Fold- and thrust-related deformation at the deposit, and subsequent magmatic and hydrothermal activity, were localized along a long-lived, crustal-scale cross-strike discontinuity. Hydrothermal activity at Lagunas Norte was associated with local extension within an overall regional compressive regime. Ore formation occurred during the terminal stages of andesitic-to-dacitic magmatism in the deposit area, immediately following the sector collapse of an adjacent volcanic centre, and during eruption of late-stage peripheral dacitic domes. Intense advanced-argillic alteration occurred in at least two major pulses over a ~ 0.9 m.y. period, implying repeated magma influx in a shallow subjacent chamber. The ensuing Au-(Ag)-pyrite-enargite deposition resulted from mixing of magmatic vapour with oxidized groundwaters, a process stimulated by the contiguous incision of a steep-walled valley-pediment. The local volcanic rocks record a transition from “normal arc” to higher-pressure “adakitic” magmatism, initiated during ore deposition at Lagunas Norte, but exhibited by the entire Calipuy arc in northern Perú, and interpreted to reflect the destabilization of plagioclase and stabilization of garnet in inferred lower-crustal magmas. The progressive depletion of 18O and D in meteoric water recorded in late Oligocene-to-Late Miocene hypogene and supergene minerals is in permissive agreement with major uplift from ~ 1000 m to over 3000 m a.s.l. during hydrothermal activity. Hydrothermal activity and related ore deposition at Lagunas Norte unambiguously predated, by at least 2 m.y., the impingement of the aseismic Nazca Ridge at the Perú Trench and the ensuing flattening of the subducting slab / Thesis (Ph.D, Geological Sciences & Geological Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-04-05 11:09:14.751

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