Porphyry copper and molybdenum deposits in west-central British Columbia are associated with plutons of Late Cretaceous and Tertiary age which intrude Mesozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Intermontane Tectonic Belt. The porphyry deposits are contained in an area bounded on the west by granitic rocks of the Coast Plutonic Complex, and on the east and southeast by a belt containing
Mesozoic granitic stocks and an extensive area of Tertiary volcanic rocks. The porphyry intrusions take the form of small stocks, plugs , dykes, and dyke swarms generally not exceeding 1 square mile in surface area. The intrusions are commonly multiple and range in composition from quartz diorite to granite. Copper and molybdenum sulphides occur as fracture fillings and as veinlet stockworks within and adjacent to the intrusive bodies. Sulphide and alteration minerals exhibit concentric zoning patterns. Volcanic and sedimentary rocks marginal to the intrusions are thermally metamorphosed to biotite hornfels. Results of potassium-argon dating indicate four crudely parallel north to northwest-trending belts of porphyry intrusions, each being distinctive in age, rock composition, and contained metallic mineralization. From west to east these include: (1) Alice Arm intrusions - 50 m.y. molybdenum-bearing quartz monzonite and granite intrusions; (2) Bulkley intrusions - 70 to 84 m.y. copper-molybdenum and molybdenum-bearing porphyries of granodiorite to quartz monzonite composition; (3) Nanika intrusions - 50 m.y. copper-molybdenum and molybdenum-bearing intrusions of quartz monzonite composition; (4) Babine intrusions - 50 m.y. copper-bearing intrusions of quartz diorite and granodiorite
composition.
Potassium-argon analyses were carried out mainly on biotite separates from the mineralized porphyry phases within the deposits. Dating of inter-mineral and post-mineral porphyry phases, common at many of the deposits, yielded ages equivalent to, or 2 to 3 m.y. younger than, the mineralized phases, indicating that the age of mineralization is essentially synchronous with the age of intrusion. Limits of analytical errors in these potassium-argon analyses are within 3 per cent of the calculated ages. The distribution of potasslum-argon ages for porphyry deposits in west-central British Columbia does not fit the plate tectonic theories proposed for the origin of similar deposits elsehwere in the Cordillera of North and South America, in which deposits are progressively younger in a given direction. Here, four crudely parallel belts of porphyry intrusions display a reversal in age from 50 m.y. to 70 - 84 m.y. to 50 m.y. in an eastward direction. This distribution of ages may have been caused by periodic movement from Late Jurassic to Tertiary time along a subduction zone beneath the Coast Plutonic Complex which forms the west border of the area containing the porphyry deposits. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/18941 |
| Date | January 1974 |
| Creators | Carter, Nicholas Charles |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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