The Mesoproterozoic Gawler Silicic Large Igneous Province (SLIP) in the Gawler Craton and Curnamona Province, southern Australia, comprises extensive felsic and lesser mafic volcanic sequences, with only limited sedimentary successions. The Roopena Basin is a rare example of a synvolcanic sedimentary basin that formed within the Gawler SLIP in the eastern Gawler Craton. It is a north–south-trending basin with a preserved area of 75 km2, bound by the Roopena and Wizzo Well faults, and contains three units of the lower Gawler Range Volcanics; the Angle Dam Dacite, Fresh Well Formation and Roopena Basalt. The Angle Dam Dacite is a porphyritic lava and the oldest part of the volcanic succession, directly overlying basement. The Fresh Well Formation overlies the Angle Dam Dacite or basement, comprises three coarsening-upwards volcaniclastic packages of claystone, siltstone, fine-grained to coarse-grained lithic sandstone and conglomerate deposited in a fluvio-lacustrine setting, and contains three tuff members. The Roopena Basalt is interlayered with the Fresh Well Formation, and comprises auto-brecciated lavas that exhibit only local interaction with water or wet sediment. Sharp basal contacts of the prograding packages within the Fresh Well Formation provide evidence of rapid flooding events within the basin. New detrital zircon geochronology of a sandstone within the Fresh Well Formation yielded a maximum depositional age of ca 1580 Ma, with provenance dominated by felsic volcanic units of the 1635–1605 Ma St Peter Suite. Sedimentation in the Gawler SLIP appears to have occurred in isolated basins with limited areal extent. It was largely restricted to the eastern Gawler Craton, and as well as the Roopena Basin, and includes similar basins at the Olympic Dam and Prominent Hill iron oxide–copper–gold ± uranium (IOCG ± U) deposits. The coincidence of sedimentation and mafic volcanism in the eastern Gawler Craton suggests that this region underwent extension at this time, although high-temperature metamorphism and compressional deformation occurred in some parts of the Gawler Craton and Curnamona Province synchronous with the Gawler SLIP. The Roopena Basin sedimentary rocks and underlying basement contain hematite–chlorite–sericite–white mica assemblages, permissive of hematite-style IOCG mineral deposits; however, no significant ore deposit has yet been discovered in the Roopena Basin.
Abstract Porphyry-style hydrothermal alteration has long been recognized in the Delamerian Orogen, Southeastern Australia. However, the fertility of porphyry prospects in this belt, including the Anabama Hill, remains elusive, due to intermittent exploration activities and sparse exposure. Recent significant discoveries of porphyry-epithermal Cu-Au deposits in the adjacent Stavely Arc have led to renewed exploration interest. Reinvestigation of the Anabama Hill drill cores highlights that K-feldspar-rich and epidote-chlorite-dominated alterations are superimposed by extensive quartz-pyrite ± chalcopyrite ± molybdenite veins with white mica-quartz selvedges, related to early-middle Ordovician granitic stocks. Granodiorite and diorite hosts have diagnostic geochemical characteristics, including high Sr/Y, V/Sc ratios, and listric-shaped REE trends, implying amphibole-leading fractionation due to high water contents in primitive melts. LA-ICP-MS analyses show that characteristic element compositions, e.g., high Fe, Sr, Pb, U and Bi and low Mg and REEs in the Anabama Hill epidote, and high Mn, Zn, Zr and U and low Ca, Ba and Pb in the chlorite, suggest the two minerals resulting from propylitic alteration rather than metamorphism. Compared to well-mineralized porphyry deposits, the epidote shows high Bi, Cu, Sr, Ti, Zr and U, and the chlorite is high in Ti/Sr and Al/Si ratios, implying that they are most likely deposit-proximal or near a heat center. This is supported by intermediate to high temperatures of 200—420°C calculated by chlorite geothermometer. Propylitic epidote and chlorite outside pyrite halos typically define geochemical shoulders by anomalous As-Sb and Mn-Zn highs, 1—1.5 km away from the mineralized centers. Given most of the epidote and chlorite intergrown with sulfides, their close proximity to a likely mineralized center accounts for low to moderate concentrations of distal pathfinder elements and subdued performances on the As-Sb and Mn-Zn fertility plots. Combined with bulk-rock results, proximal-fertility indicators recorded in epidote and chlorite provide encouraging implications for porphyry exploration in the Delamerian belt.
Abstract The link between mineral resources and crustal‐rooted structures has been proposed for many of the world's most significant mineral provinces. Here we utilize a new approach by interpreting potential field data, including satellite gravity data, and high‐resolution continental‐scale magnetotelluric data, constrained with aeromagnetic, and seismic tomography and reflection data, to determine the distribution of crustal‐scale faults in the Archean to Proterozoic Gawler Craton (South Australia). The eastern flank of the craton hosts the supergiant Olympic Dam iron oxide‐copper‐gold (IOCG) deposit within a larger Olympic IOCG province. The central part of the craton contains gold‐only deposits, which define the Central Gawler Gold province. Both of these provinces are part of a Mesoproterozoic mineral system with an extensive hydrothermal alteration footprint, which formed during complicated tectonic mode switches. We show that both types of mineralization are located in proximity to crustal‐scale structures that appear to connect deep crustal fragments, which likely record the amalgamation of the Archean nucleus of the craton during the Neoarchean with subsequent reworking during the Mesoproterozoic. Many of these structures do not have a surface expression but coincide with gradients in magnetism, gravity, and electric resistivity anomalies, the latter data set suggesting they acted as fluid pathways extending to the lower crust. The results indicate that the first‐order controls on the distribution of IOCG and Central Gawler Gold metallogenic provinces are inherited from earlier tectonic events, which formed major crustal boundaries and related structures that are prone to reworking during later tectonism.
Plate tectonics is the primary method for cycling of material between the mantle, crust, and surface reservoirs of our planet. Oxygen isotopes (18O/16O, δ18O) in zircon have been shown to track source components through subduction, primarily by detecting the presence of isotopically heavy supracrustal material. Isotopically light signatures are relatively rare, suggesting recycling of high-temperature hydrothermal sources is negligible. Here, we report light δ18O data from magmatic-arc rocks of the 511−500 Ma Stavely Belt in western Victoria, Australia. These rocks demonstrate a two-stage mixing history: (1) constant, highly radiogenic εHf with decreasing δ18O, indicating sub-mantle δ18O initial compositions, interpreted to represent a sub-arc mantle contaminated with low-δ18O slab melts and/or fluids; and (2) decreasing εHf with increasing δ18O, implying crustal contamination with country-rock turbidites. These new data suggest that high-temperature hydrothermal sources can be recycled through subduction zones and alter the composition of the sub-arc mantle. We demonstrate how slab tearing could have driven this process, its connection to the architecture of the Delamerian Orogen, and implications for circum-supercontinent margins.
The Mesoproterozoic Gawler Range Volcanics and Benagerie Volcanic Suite of the Gawler Craton and Curnamona Province, South Australia, together with associated intrusive magmatism, define an intracontinental, subaerial large igneous province (LIP) preserving an estimated 110 000 km3 of volcanic rock, which hosts one of the world's largest orebodies, the Fe oxide-Cu-Au-U deposit at Olympic Dam, and numerous other related Cu-Au deposits. New high-precision Chemical Abrasion Isotope Dilution Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (CA-TIMS) U-Pb dates on volcanic zircons allow for regional correlations between stratigraphic units of the GRV and BVS, and an understanding of how magmatic styles, temperatures, composition and mantle source input evolve over the duration of the LIP. The new dates indicate that the entire volcanic province erupted over a geologically short time interval of less than 10 million years, from c. 1595 to 1586 Ma, culminating in a widespread, voluminous flood rhyolite province that erupted in less than 1.5 million years, and most likely in 260,000 years or less. This follows a pattern of volcanism that is similar in duration and volume to mafic and bimodal continental LIPs, of which the mafic-dominated Phanerozoic continental flood basalt provinces are the more common end member.
Abstract Paleozoic porphyry-style hydrothermal alteration and mineralization has previously been recognized within the Delamerian orogen, South Australia, where porphyry prospects include Anabama Hill, Netley Hill, and Bendigo. However, limited exploration due in part to thick postmineralization cover hinders the understanding of the temporal context, metallogenic setting, and mineral potential of the porphyry systems along the Proterozoic continental margin of Australia. In this study, we have characterized the hydrothermal alteration and mineralization of these porphyry occurrences. Zircon U-Pb, molybdenite Re-Os, and white mica Rb-Sr ages have been determined to constrain the timing for emplacement of magmatic intrusions, precipitation of metal-bearing sulfides, and duration of hydrothermal alteration in the Delamerian orogenic belt. Zircon U-Pb laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses of nine granitoids reveal that the intrusive rocks were emplaced mostly between 485 and 465 Ma, whereas three intrusions at Bendigo have zircon U-Pb ages of 490 to 480 Ma. Molybdenite isotope dilution-negative thermal ion mass spectrometry (ID-NTIMS) Re-Os dating of the four prospects identifies two porphyry Cu-Mo mineralization events at 480 and 470 to 460 Ma, respectively. Nineteen white mica Rb-Sr LA-ICP-MS/MS (tandem mass spectrometers) analyses return an age range between 455 and 435 Ma for phyllic alteration at the Anabama Hill and Netley Hill prospects, whereas intense white mica-quartz-pyrite alteration at Bendigo prospect appears to have developed between 470 and 460 Ma. These geochronologic results indicate that the Delamerian porphyry systems postdated subduction-related magmatism in the region (514–490 Ma) but instead formed within an inverted back-arc regime, where mineralized magmas and fluids ascended along favorable lithospheric-scale structures, probably due to asthenospheric upwelling triggered by mafic delamination. Porphyritic stocks, dikes, and aplites with ages of 470 to 460 Ma are the most likely hosts to porphyry-style mineralization in the Delamerian orogen that appears to have formed simultaneously with the oldest known porphyry systems in the intraoceanic Macquarie arc (e.g., Marsden, E43, and Milly Milly; 467–455 Ma). These results emphasize the significance and potential of Early-Middle Ordovician intrusive systems to host such a type of magmatic-hydrothermal mineralization in the Delamerian orogen.
Abstract. In this study, we provide 40Ar / 39Ar geochronology data from a suite of variably deformed rocks from a region of low-grade metamorphism within the Cambro–Ordovician Delamerian Orogen, South Australia. Low-grade metamorphic rocks such as these can contain both detrital minerals and minerals newly grown or partly recrystallised during diagenesis and metamorphism. Hence, they typically yield complex 40Ar / 39Ar age spectra that can be difficult to interpret. Therefore, we have undertaken furnace step heating 40Ar / 39Ar geochronology to obtain age spectra with many steps to allow for application of the method of asymptotes and limits and recognition of the effects of mixing. The samples analysed range from siltstone and shale to phyllite and contain muscovite or phengite with minor microcline as determined by hyperspectral mineralogical characterisation. Whole rock 40Ar / 39Ar analyses were undertaken in most samples due to their very fine-grained nature. All samples are dominated by radiogenic 40Ar, and contain minimal evidence for atmospheric Ca- or Cl-derived argon. Chloritisation may have resulted in limited recoil, causing 39Ar argon loss in some samples, which is especially evident within the first few percent of gas released. Most of the age data, however, appear to have some geological significance. Viewed with respect to the known depositional ages of the stratigraphic units, the age spectra from this study do appear to record both detrital mineral ages and ages related to the varying influence of either cooling or deformation-induced recrystallisation. The shape of the age spectra and the degree of deformation in the phyllites suggest the younger ages may record recrystallisation of detrital minerals and/or new mica growth during deformation. Given that the younger limit of deformation recorded in the high-metamorphic-grade regions of the Delamerian Orogen is ca. 490 Ma, the ca. 470 to ca. 458 Ma ages obtained in this study suggest deformation in low-grade shear zones within the Delamerian Orogen may have persisted until ca. 20–32 million years after high-temperature ductile deformation in the high-grade regions of the orogen. We suggest that these younger ages for deformation could reflect reactivation of older structures formed both during rift basin formation and during the main peak of the Delamerian orogeny itself. The younger ca. 470 to ca. 458 Ma deformation may have been facilitated by far-field tectonic processes occurring along the eastern paleo-Pacific margin of Gondwana.
Formation of the Gawler felsic large igneous province (LIP) involved a mantle plume and mafic underplating underneath a metasomatised subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM). Minor extrusive basalt to andesite rocks show the evolution of mantle composition during the initial stages of LIP formation (ca. 15931590 Ma). The earliest basaltic magmatism has low Nb/Yb ratios, low (La/Yb)N, and high εNd(i), representing a relatively depleted region from within the metasomatised SCLM. The more depleted composition and higher volume of this magmatism is consistent with early plume-head driven melts. Subsequent basaltic magmatism shows increasing enrichment in the source, evidenced by increasing Nb/Yb and Th/Nb ratios and decreasing εNd(i). The final stage of basaltic magmatism is marked by an isotopically juvenile SCLM source characterised by lower Th/Nb ratios, possibly representing a rejuvenation phase. Dacite to rhyolite rocks record the behaviour of crustal melting above a mantle plume. Older dacite to rhyolite units extruded 1593.611588.47 Ma represent compositionally heterogeneous rocks that correlate temporally with the basaltic to andesitic units. The Nd isotopic record suggests an increasing SCLM component from the early to late stages of felsic magmatism, occurring synchronously with increasing enrichment in basaltic magmas. Younger dacite to rhyolite units (1586.661586.39 Ma) have no associated mafic component, are geochemically and isotopically homogeneous and represent large volumes of felsic lava extruded in 300 Kyr. The final stage of felsic magmatism (1586.39 Ma) is marked by crystal-rich dacite, decreasing εNd(i) and lower Ti-in-zircon temperatures which are interpreted to represent the waning phase of the mantle plume and increasing crustal melting. This study provides a rare example of temporally constrained geochemical and isotopic compositions in mafic and felsic volcanism in a LIP. Our detailed petrogenetic work best demonstrates the generation of the Gawler LIP occurred in an intracontinental, plume setting analogous to a mafic LIP model.
Major lithospheric boundaries under cover have commonly been recognised through tracing of potential field anomalies, such as extensive magnetic boundaries representing margins of upper crustal packages in conjunction with density contrast. Here, we extend the investigation of domain mapping to include isotope geochemistry and deep-probing magnetotelluric data, which are able to map the deeper crustal and mantle lithosphere. We demonstrate with examples across the Kalinjala Shear Zone, South Australia, and the Eastern Gawler Craton, that major lithospheric domain boundaries exert a primary control on the location of mineral deposits near the surface.We show examples of correlating magnetotelluric models derived from the Australian Lithospheric Magnetotelluric Project (AusLAMP) and higher density broadband magnetotelluric deployments along profiles with isotope geochemistry across major lithospheric boundaries in South Australia. As one example, the Kalinjala Shear Zone in the southern Gawler Craton can be better constrained using the additional geochemical and magnetotelluric data sets and solve a long-standing debate about the northern extension of the Kalinjala Shear Zone towards the prospective Olympic Province, which hosts,_major IOCG deposits. These insights have led to the development of future exploration programs which focus on in-fill broadband deployments for MT and isotope mapping to trace major lithosphere boundaries to the surface, reducing risk for mineral exploration.
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