Lithogeochemical localisation of disseminated gold in the White River area, Yukon, Canada |
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Authors: | Doug MacKenzie Dave Craw Mike Cooley Adrian Fleming |
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Affiliation: | (1) Geology Department, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand;(2) Structural Geology Consulting, 52 Wolfe St, Kingston, ON, Canada, K7M 1H5;(3) Rockworks Ltd, 1500-409 Granville St, Vancouver, Canada, V6C 1T2; |
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Abstract: | Gold mineralisation in the White River area, 80 km south of the highly productive Klondike alluvial goldfield, is hosted in
amphibolite facies gneisses in the same Permian metamorphic pile as the basement for the Klondike goldfield. Hydrothermal
fluid which introduced the gold was controlled by fracture systems associated with middle Cretaceous to early Tertiary extensional
faults. Gold deposition occurred where highly fractured and chemically reactive rocks allowed intense water–rock interaction
and hydrothermal alteration, with only minor development of quartz veins. Felsic gneisses were sericitised with recrystallisation
of hematite and minor arsenic mobility, and extensively pyritised zones contain gold and minor arsenic (ca 10 ppm). Graphitic
quartzites (up to 5 wt.% carbon) caused chemical reduction of mineralising fluids, with associated recrystallisation of metamorphic
minerals (graphite, pyrrhotite, pyrite, chalcopyrite) in host rocks and veins, and introduction of arsenic (up to 1 wt.%)
to form arsenopyrite in veins and disseminated through host rock. Veins have little or no hydrothermal quartz, and up to 19 wt.%
carbon as graphite. Late-stage oxidation of arsenopyrite in some graphitic veins has formed pharmacosiderite. Gold is closely
associated with disseminated and vein sulphides in these two rock types, with grades of up to 3 ppm on the metre scale. Other
rock types in the White River basement rocks, including biotite gneiss, hornblende gneiss, pyroxenite, and serpentinite, have
not developed through-going fracture systems because of their individual mineralogical and rheological characteristics, and
hence have been little hydrothermally altered themselves, have little hydrothermal gold, and have restricted flow of fluids
through the rock mass. Some small post-metamorphic quartz veins (metre scale) have been intensely fractured and contain abundant
gold on fractures (up to 40 ppm), but these are volumetrically minor. The style of gold mineralisation in the White River
area is younger than, and distinctly different from, that of the Klondike area. Some of the mineralised zones in the White
River area resemble, mineralogically and geochemically, nearby coeval igneous-hosted gold deposits, but this resemblance is
superficial only. The White River mineralisation is an entirely new style of Yukon gold deposit, in which host rocks control
the mineralogy and geochemistry of disseminated gold, without quartz veins. |
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