Potassic Igneous Rocks and Associated Gold-Copper Mineralization

342 Pages·2016·11.03 MB·English

by  Daniel Müller

Mineral Resource Reviews
Daniel Müller
David I. Groves
Potassic Igneous
Rocks and Associated
Gold-Copper
Mineralization
Fourth Edition
Mineral Resource Reviews
Series editor
John Slack, Reston, VA, USA
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11683
Daniel Müller David I. Groves
(cid:129)
Potassic Igneous Rocks
and Associated
Gold-Copper
Mineralization
Fourth Edition
123
DanielMüller David I.Groves
Eschborn Department of GeologyandGeophysics
Germany Centre for Exploration Targeting
University of Western Australia
Crawley, WA
Australia
ISSN 2365-0559 ISSN 2365-0567 (electronic)
Mineral Resource Reviews
ISBN978-3-319-23050-4 ISBN978-3-319-23051-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-23051-1
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015947403
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Preface
In recent years, there has been increasing interest from geoscientists in
potassic igneous rocks. Academic geoscientists have been interested in their
petrogenesis and their potential value in defining the tectonic setting of the
terranes into which they were intruded, and exploration geoscientists have
become increasingly interested in the growing acceptance of an association
of these rocks with major epithermal gold and porphyry gold-copper
deposits. In recent years, there has also been growing recognition of an
association of such rocks with iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposits,
intrusion-related gold deposits (IRGDs), and possibly even Carlin-type gold
deposits. Despite this current interest, there is no comprehensive textbook
that deals with these aspects of potassic igneous rocks.
Thisbookredressesthissituationbyelucidatingthecharacteristicfeatures
ofpotassic(high-K)igneousrocks,erectingahierarchicalschemethatallows
interpretation of their tectonic setting using whole-rock geochemistry, and
investigating their associations with a wide variety of both arc-related and
non-arcgoldandcopper-golddeposits,worldwide.Abouthalfofthebookis
based on a Ph.D. thesis by Dr. Daniel Müller which was produced at the
Centre for Strategic Mineral Deposits (former ARC Key Centre) within the
Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Western
Australia under the supervision of Prof. David Groves, the late Dr. Nick
Rock, the late Prof. Eugen Stumpfl, Dr. Wayne Taylor, and Dr. Brendan
Griffin. The remainder of the book was compiled from the literature using
the collective experience of the two authors. The book is dedicated to the
memoryofNickRockandEugenStumpflwhoinitiatedtheresearch project
on which it is based but died before its completion.
Earlier editions of this book have encouraged more focus on the rela-
tionshipbetweenhigh-Kmagmatismandhydrothermalgoldandgold-copper
mineralization worldwide, which is reflected in numerous new case studies
and research papers that have been published since our Third Edition in
2000. This new updated and enlarged Fourth Edition incorporates new data
andreferencesfromAfrica,Australia,Brazil,China,Greece,Iran,Mongolia,
North America, Russia, and Turkey, including new maps and sections and
v
vi Preface
new plates of high-grade gold-copper ore from major deposits hosted by
potassic igneous rocks. Not only the new edition does incorporate the latest
literatureonthetopic,butitalsoprovidespracticalsuggestionsforthetarget
generationteamsofminingcompaniesexploringforworld-classgoldand/or
copper deposits in modern and ancient arc and non-arc terranes.
Sincere thanks are due to our colleagues and friends at the former Key
Centre (currently evolved into The Centre for Exploration Targeting at the
University of Western Australia) for providing a stimulating environment
inwhichtodotheresearchandtowritethefirstdraftsofthebook.Gratitude
is also expressed to former colleagues at Placer Dome Exploration Inc. in
Santiago; North Limited in Parkes; Kanowna Belle Gold Mines in
Kalgoorlie; PT North Mining Indonesia in Jakarta; TU Bergakademie
in Freiberg; ETH in Zürich; Ivanhoe Mines in Hohhot; Citadel Resource
GroupinJeddah;CoventryResourcesinToronto;andBHPBillitoninPerth,
Singapore, and Santiago, for encouraging the completion and revision,
respectively,ofallfoureditionsofthebook.ThelateProf.EugenStumpflis
also sincerely thanked for his hospitality and assistance in the early stages
of the research recorded in the book. Col Steel is also thanked for his
excellent drafting of the more complex maps displayed in the book. Dr.
Annett Büttner, Dörthe Mennecke-Bühler, and the late Dr. Wolfgang Engel
of Springer-Verlag are thanked for their continued enthusiastic support and
encouragement of the project.
Thefollowingcolleaguesalsoprovidedsupport,contributedideas,shared
authorship on papers, and/or provided unpublished information:
Anita-Kim Appleby, Antonio Arribas, Chris Ballhaus, Graham Begg,
Frank Bierlein, Phil Blevin, Eric Bloem, Renato Bobis, Geoff Booth, David
Bowes,SelinaBrown,JoshBryant,BobBurke,MariCarrizo,MeganClark,
Hilko Dalstra, Alan Edgar, Sergio Espinosa, Michael Farrand, Fine Fiedler,
Peter Forrestal, RichardFörster,LeanderFranz, Ron Frost,Michael Gareau,
SimonGatehouse,SilkeGawlick,MusieGebre-Mariam,RichGoldfarb,Sue
Golding, Eliseo Gonzalez-Urien, Roland Gorbatschev, Torsten Graupner,
Lalou Gwalani, Greg Hall, Adolf Helke, Chris Heinrich, Paul Heithersay,
BruceHooper,SteveHunt,PaulIvascanu,AbrahamJanse,RodJones,Roger
Jones, Klaus Kaminski, Michael Kande, Imants Kavalieris, Bat-Erdene
Khashgerel, Doug Kirwin, Tilo Kroll, Jeffrey Keith, Megan Kenny, David
Keough,RobKerrich,KalinKouzmanov,MarianneLandtwing,KenLawrie,
BerndLehmann,LiYuan,DonLindsley,LiuHuairen,BobLove,JohnMair,
George MacDonald, Mannie Mehu, Neal McNaughton, Ian Miles, Claudio
Milliotti, Aberra Mogessie, Brian Morris, Gregg Morrison, Peter Neumayr,
Juhani Ojala, Julian Pearce, Sven Petersen, Irena Peytcheva, Joe Pieken-
brock, Albrecht von Quadt, David Quick, David Radclyffe, Rob Ramsay,
Steve Rose, Hector Salgado, Wolfram Schuh, Thomas Seifert, Dave Selley,
Steve Sheppard, Richard Sillitoe, Serguei Soloviev, Henning Sørensen,
Preface vii
Hernan Soza, Jon Standing, Craig Stegman, Joe Stolz, Firman Sumarwan,
Shen-Su Sun, William Threlkeld, Spencer Titley, Linda Tompkins, Takeshi
Uemoto, Ignacio Ugalde, Theo van Leeuwen, Stefan Uhlig, Gianpiero
Venturelli, Marcial Vergara, Richard and Noreen Vielreicher, Mike
Wheatley, Noel White, Paul Warren, Rohan Wolfe, Doone Wyborn,
Derek Wyman, and Zhang Andi.
Eschborn Daniel Müller
Perth David I. Groves
Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Preamble: Potassic Igneous Rocks and Their
Importance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Scope of Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Definitions and Nomenclature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Historical Perspective of Potassic Igneous Rocks . . . . . 9
2.2 Potassic Igneous Rocks as an Umbrella Term. . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Shoshonites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4 Shoshonitic and Alkaline Lamprophyres . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5 Ultrapotassic Rocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5.2 Lamproites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5.3 Kamafugites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5.4 Orogenic Ultrapotassic Rocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.6 Group II Kimberlites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.7 Potassic Igneous Rocks as Considered in This Book. . . 14
2.8 Field Recognition of Potassic Igneous Rocks . . . . . . . . 14
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3 Tectonic Settings of Potassic Igneous Rocks. . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2 Tectonic Settings of Potassic Igneous Rocks . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.1 Continental Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.2 Postcollisional Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.3 Oceanic (Island) Arc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.2.4 Within-Plate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2.5 Problems with Tectonic Classification. . . . . . . 23
3.3 History of Discrimination of Tectonic Setting
by Geochemical Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.4 Erection of Databases SHOSH1 and SHOSH2 . . . . . . . 28
3.5 Discrimination of Tectonic Setting by Multivariate
Statistical Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
ix
x Contents
3.6 Discrimination via Simple Geochemical Diagrams . . . . 35
3.7 Theoretical Basis for Discrimination Between
Potassic Igneous Rocks in Different Tectonic
Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.8 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4 Selected Type-Localities of Potassic Igneous Rocks
from the Five Tectonic Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1 Roman Province (Italy): Example from a Continental
Arc Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1.2 Regional Geology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1.3 Mineralogy and Petrography of the Potassic
Igneous Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.1.4 Geochemistry of the Potassic Igneous
Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2 Kreuzeck Mountains, Eastern Alps (Austria):
Example from a Postcollisional Arc Setting . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.2 Regional Geology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.3 Mineralogy and Petrography
of the Lamprophyres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2.4 Geochemistry of the Lamprophyres. . . . . . . . . 59
4.3 Northern Mariana Arc (West Pacific): Example
from an Initial Oceanic Arc Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.3.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.3.2 Regional Geology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.3.3 Mineralogy and Petrography of the Potassic
Igneous Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.3.4 Geochemistry of the Potassic Igneous
Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.4 Vanuatu (Southwest Pacific): Example from a Late
Oceanic Arc Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.4.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.4.2 Regional Geology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.4.3 Mineralogy and Petrography of the Potassic
Igneous Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.4.4 Geochemistry of the Potassic Igneous
Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.5 African Rift Valley (Rwanda, Uganda, Democratic
Republic of Congo): Example from a Within-Plate
Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.5.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.5.2 Regional Geology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.5.3 Mineralogy and Petrography of the Potassic
Igneous Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.5.4 Geochemistry of the Potassic Igneous
Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73