In this thesis, an integrated structural and chemical approach has been used to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution of fluid chemistry, and fluid flow pathways, during crustal shortening. The Taemas Vein Swarm is hosted in a limestone-shale sequence, the Murrumbidgee Group, in the Eastern Belt of the Lachlan Orogen, in New South Wales, Australia. The Taemas Vein Swarm (TVS) is composed of calcite ± quartz veins, hosted in a series of faults and fractures, which extends over an area of approximately 20 km2. The Murrumbidgee Group is composed of several formations, comprising massive grey micritic limestones, redbed sandstones and shales,and thinly interbedded (1020 cm scale) limestones and shales.
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The sedimentary sequence has been folded into a series of upright, open to close
folds, and was probably deformed during either mid-late Devonian, or early Carboniferous, crustal shortening. To the east, the Murrumbidgee Group is overthrust
by a Silurian volcanic sedimentary sequence along the Deakin-Warroo Fault System.
Crosscutting and overprinting relationships demonstrate that vein growth was synchronous with folding, with different vein types related to different fold mechanisms
at various stages of fold growth.
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Flexural slip folding led to the development of bedding-concordant veins (hereafter
called bedding-parallel veins). Flexural flow in semicompetent to incompetent beds
caused en echelon extension vein arrays to grow. Decoupling between beds, and
dilatancy at fold hinges led to significant vein growth. In addition, fold lock-up led to
limb-parallel stretching, and the growth of bedding-orthogonal extension fractures.
¶
Vein growth is inferred to have occurred in a compressional tectonic regime (i.e.
sigma3=vertical). Oxygen isotope quartz-calcite thermometry suggests that veins formed at temperatures of 100200 oC. The depth of vein formation may have been between
about 5 and 8 km. Vein textures indicate that growth of veins occurred during
multiple cycles of permeability enhancement and destruction. Subhorizontal extension
fractures, and faults at unfavourable angles for reactivation, imply that fluid
pressures exceeded lithostatic levels during the growth of some veins. Coexisting
extension and shear fractures imply that differential stress levels varied over time.
¶
Flexural slip continued throughout folding at Taemas, despite some fold limbs
being at angles extremely unfavourable for reactivation ( > 60). As folds approached
frictional lock-up, flexural slip continued to occur when supralithostatic fluid pressures were developed. Therefore, large, bedding-discordant faults were not
developed to accommodate strain during folding, explaining a deficiency of larger
faults in the TVS.
¶
Infiltration of overpressured fluids occurred into the base of the Murrumbidgee
Group, and was channelled into a distributed mesh of small faults and fractures.
At the point that a connected backbone flow network developed in the TVS, highpressure
fluids would no longer be available to allow continuing flexural slip on fold
limbs approaching lockup. Thereafter, larger faults would develop, which would
adjust the fault population in the TVS to a more typical displacement-frequency
distribution. This had not occurred in the Taemas area by the time crustal shortening
ceased. An abundance of small faults, and fracturing driven by invasion of
overpressured fluid, implies that the TVS formed via an earthquake swarm process.
¶
Modern analytical techniques, utilising laser ablation sampling technology, allow
high-spatial resolution chemical data to be collected from syntectonic veins. Insights
into the role that fluid-mineral interface processes may have on the chemistry of minerals grown in syntectonic veins were provided by an experimental study. Moderate sized ( < 1−5 mm) synthetic calcite crystals were successfully grown to investigate the uptake of rare earth elements (REE) into calcite. Changes in crystal morphology are linked to variable solution chemistry, which has important implications for the interpretation of hydrothermal vein textures. High-spatial resolution chemical analyses of synthetic calcite crystals demonstrate significant fluctuations in REE concentrations over distances of < 200 μm within calcite crystals. Time-equivalent regions on different crystal faces have significantly different REE concentrations,
indicating that fluctuations in calcite trace element composition cannot be interpreted
exclusively in terms of changing bulk fluid composition. Rare earth element
anomalies (Eu/Eu* and Ce/Ce*) are not significantly influenced by compositional
zoning, and may be robust indicators of changes in solution bulk chemistry and fluid
oxidation state.
¶
Changes in isotopic ratios (13C, 18O and 87Sr/86Sr), and trace element concentrations in veins from the TVS are related to variations in fluid source, flow pathways and chemical conditions (e.g. trace element complexation, precipitation rate, fluid oxidation) during hydrothermal fluid flow. This integrated structural, textural and chemical approach has direct application to the examination of hydrothermal veins
in fracture-hosted ore deposits, and may allow the fluid source and/or chemical
conditions conducive to the formation of high-grade ore to be discerned.
¶
Vein 18O compositions systematically increase upwards through the Murrumbidgee
Group, caused by progressive reaction of an externally derived, low-18O fluid (of
probable meteoric origin) with host limestones. Vein 18O and 87Sr/86Sr compositions vary spatially and temporally within the same outcrop, and within individual veins, which is inferred to be caused by the ascent of packages of fluid along constantly changing flow pathways. Fluid-buffered oxygen isotope ratios at the earliest stages of deformation imply that the TVS formed via an invasion percolation process. Fluid pathways are inferred to have changed constantly, with fractures toggleswitching between high-permeability and low-permeability states, due to repeated
fracture opening and sealing events.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/241114 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Barker, Shaun, sbarker@eos.ubc.ca |
| Publisher | The Australian National University. Research School of Earth Sciences |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.anu.edu.au/legal/copyrit.html), Copyright Shaun Barker |
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