ALBERT

Description: Gold production from the northern Pataz district in the eastern Andean Cordillera of Peru has been sourced mainly from mesothermal quartz-carbonate-sulfide veins hosted by the Mississippian Pataz batholith. Gold is also found in basement-hosted veins underlying the batholith, in the Vijus-Santa Filomena area of the district. Both are located within a central horst; similar vein mineralogy and proximal phengitic white mica alteration are common to both. However, comb-textured quartz, the chemical compositions of bulk ore and sulfide minerals, and the presence of barite and siderite veins suggest that the basement-hosted veins formed at a shallower crustal level. Similar expressions of hydrothermal alteration associated with anomalous gold, As, Sb, and Tl are also present in the adjacent Lavasen graben, where alteration is intimately associated with volcanic processes that deposited the Mississippian Lavasen Volcanics. K-Ar and 40 Ar- 39 Ar ages for hydrothermal illite from all three locations range between Mississippian and Late Triassic but are consistent with a single Mississippian hydrothermal event, if the data record a minimum age for original illite formation. The geologic setting, mineralization styles, and chemical data suggest a range of crustal depths, ranging from mesothermal batholith-hosted veins through shallow to intermediate depths for the Vijus-Santa Filomena area to a near-surface epithermal setting for the Misquichilca area. Telescoping of this 10- to 13-km crustal range into a 3-km topographic section of the Andes is attributed to syn- and postmineralization uplift and erosion. Sulfide-rich high-grade ore shoots and moderately saline fluid inclusions in the batholith-hosted veins are inconsistent with the original orogenic gold model and suggest a magmatic source component for the ore fluid, consistent with stable isotope (O, H, C, and S) compositions of quartz, illite, carbonates, and sulfides. The isotopic data suggest a mixed magmatic-meteoric ore fluid in the basement-hosted deposits of the Vijus-Santa Filomena area and the volcanic-hosted Misquichilca area. Both the Pataz batholith and the Esperanza Subvolcanic Complex are of the same Mississippian age as the hydrothermal alteration and mineralization. The Esperanza Subvolcanic Complex, comagmatic with the Lavasen Volcanics, contains cognate mineral clots from which a subjacent magma chamber can be inferred. It exhibits potassic, calc-silicate, and argillic alteration, and evidence for the evolution of an Fe-rich volatile phase. The Lavasen-Esperanza magma suite is ferroan and weakly alkaline, with A-type affinities. These features provide a conceptual genetic link with hydrothermal alteration associated with gold mineralization, including Fe (±As) sulfides, phengitic white mica, celadonite, Fe-rich carbonates, and less common Fe oxides. An oxidized intrusion-related model is proposed for gold and hydrothermal alteration in the northern Pataz district.

Description: 〈span〉〈div〉ABSTRACT〈/div〉Nanometer to micrometer mica and illite separates of indurated Cambrian and Ordovician oil-bearing sandstones from the Hassi Messaoud field (Algeria) were extracted, x-rayed, observed by scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and K-Ar dated. Electron microscope observations revealed typical euhedral shapes for the mica to illite particles of most size fractions; almost no odd-shaped detrital crystals were detected. The combined results document several generations of mineralogical and morphological identical mica to illite crystals that could not be differentiated by the traditional identification methods. Illite and mica genesis was multiphased with crystallization episodes at 340 ± 10 (ca. Middle Mississippian), 280 ± 10 Ma (ca. early Permian), and 170 ± 10 Ma (ca. Middle Jurassic). Younger than the stratigraphic age of the host rocks, which is incompatible with a detrital origin, the two older mica ages confirm that the hydrocarbon generation and emplacement had to start after the Variscan tectonothermal event and before exhumation of the meta-sediments. The younger K-Ar ages at 135 to 110 Ma (ca. Early Cretaceous) relate to further crystallization episodes, whereas those at circa 295, 265, and 210 Ma probably correspond to variable mixtures of the older and younger mica to illite end-members. Three average K-Ar values are statistically significant: the oldest at 340 ± 10 Ma corresponds to the start of the Variscan tectonic activity, and the intermediate at 280 ± 10 Ma sets its end, both episodes probably modifying the reservoir capacities of the potential hydrocarbon host rocks. The ages at 170 ± 10 Ma identify a further diagenetic activity characterized by illitization of dickite-type precursors in local reservoirs. These younger ages could correspond to the hydrocarbon charge into reservoirs, which stopped diagenetic illitization at a present-day depth of approximately 4000 m (∼13,000 ft).〈/span〉

Description: K-Ar dating of illite in fault gouges is a useful tool for constraining the timing of brittle fault movement; however, this can be problematic in fault gouges hosted in clay-rich rocks due to the influence of host-rock material. Therefore, this study employs a multianalytical geochemical approach to unravel the influence of host-rock mineralogy, as well as fault zone development, on ages from fault-gouge samples in a shale detachment zone. K-Ar dating of the ≥2 µm fraction of 6 samples from the Sap Bon Formation detachment zone and associated fault zones in the Khao Khwang fold-thrust belt of central Thailand yielded an age range of 262 ± 5.4 to 208 ± 4.6 Ma. Carbon and oxygen stable isotope analysis along with X-ray diffraction mineralogy indicate that the samples with the youngest K-Ar ages are characterized by higher grade clay mineralogy, and hotter, orogenic fluid temperatures. Using these proxies and comparison to existing geochronology of the study area, we correlated K-Ar illite ages to one of three stages of fault zone evolution: detrital, diagenetic (burial), and authigenic (fault movement). The youngest K-Ar dates in the Sap Bon Formation are contemporaneous with recently published zircon province data indicating that faulting and detachment zone formation in the Sap Bon Formation were occurring by the mid-Late Triassic, with deformation continuing as late as the Rhaetian.

Description: The timing of slip on brittle faults in Earth’s upper crust is difficult to constrain, and direct radiometric dating of fault-generated materials is the most explicit approach. Here we make a direct comparison between K-Ar dating of fault gouge clay (authigenic illite) and U-Pb dating of carbonate slickenfibers and veins from the same fault. We have dated fault generated materials from the Big Creek fault, a northwest-striking, dextral strike-slip fault system in Yukon Territory, Canadian Cordillera. Both methods yielded dates at ca. 73 Ma and ca. 60–57 Ma, representing at least two periods of fault slip that form part of a complex fault and fluid-flow history. The Cretaceous result lies within previous indirect estimates for major slip on the fault. The Paleocene–Eocene result coincides with the estimated timing of slip of the nearby Tintina and Denali faults, which are crustal-scale, northwest-striking dextral faults, indicating Big Creek fault reactivation during regional faulting. The coincidence of periods of carbonate-crystallizing fracturing and fluid flow with intervals of seismic, gouge-generating slip supports the fault valve model, where fault strength is mediated by fluid pressures, and fluid emplacement requires seismic pumping in otherwise impermeable aseismic fault zones. The reproducibility of slip periods for distinct fault-generated materials using different decay systems indicates that these methods provide complimentary results and can be reliably applied to date brittle fault slip, opening new opportunities for investigating fault conditions with associated mineralizing fluid events.

Description: The chemical and structural alteration of metamict zircon crystals from a 619 ±17 (2σ) Ma old, posttectonic granite in the southern part of the Eastern Desert, Egypt was studied. The crystals show simple oscillatory growth zones with metamictization–induced fractures, which provided pathways for fluid infiltration. Electron and ion microprobe analyses reveal that metamict, i.e. U and Th–rich, areas are heavily enriched in Ca, Al, Fe, Mn, LREE, and a water species, and have lost Zr and Si as well as radiogenic Pb. These chemical changes are the result of an intensive reaction with a low–temperature (120—200°C) aqueous solution. The chemical reactions probably occurred within the amorphous regions of the metamict network. During the zircon–fluid interactions the metamict structure was partially recovered, as demonstrated by micro-Raman and -infrared measurements. A threshold degree of metamictization, as defined empirically by an α–decay dose, Dc, was necessary for zircons to undergo hydrothermal alteration. It is proposed that Dc marks the first percolation point, where the amorphous domains start to form percolating clusters in the metamict network and where bulk chemical diffusion is believed to increase dramatically. The time of the hydrothermal alteration is determined by a lower intercept age of a U-Pb SHRIMP discordia of 17.9 (2σ) Ma, which is in good agreement with an apatite fission track age of 22.2 (2σ) Ma. The hydrothermal alteration event occurred contemporaneously with the main rifting phase of the Red Sea and widespread low- temperature mineralizations along the Red Sea coast.