GSA Annual Meeting, November 5-8, 2001

Paper No. 0
Presentation Time: 1:30 PM-5:30 PM

TIMING CONSTRAINTS AND PARAGENESIS OF MINERALIZING EVENTS AT THE CRESTAURUM GOLD DEPOSIT, YELLOWKNIFE GREENSTONE BELT, NWT, CANADA


OOTES, Luke1, LENTZ, David R.1 and CREASER, Robert A.2, (1)Department of Geology, Univ of New Brunswick, P.O. box 4400, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada, (2)Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Univ of Alberta, 1-26 Earth Sciences Building, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E3, Canada, ootes@unb.ca

The Crestaurum shear zone-hosted lode gold deposit is located 14km north of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, in the late Archean Yellowknife Greenstone Belt of the southwestern Slave Structural Province. The 035°/55° SE shear zone transects metamorphosed basalts (ca. >2722 Ma), mixed felsic volcaniclastics, and post-volcanic gabbro and QFP dikes (ca. 2670 Ma). The metamorphic grade of the host rocks are greenschist to the east and transitional to amphibolite grade towards a polyphase tonalite to the west. The shear zone has a reverse sense of movement as indicated by steeply pitching stretching lineations, boudinaged quartz veins, and C-S fabric relationships. Regional and local fabric relationships confine the mineralization to syn- to late-D2 (~2590 Ma).

Multiple layered quartz veins and multiple generations of mineralization are evidence for a composite history. Sulfide mineralization in the gold-bearing quartz and quartz-carbonate veins include pyrite + stibnite + arsenopyrite + sulfosalts ± sphalerite ± chalcopyrite. Visible gold is physically and chemically associated with pyrite, stibnite, and sulfosalts. Refractory gold is associated with arsenopyrite. Host rock alteration in the shear zone includes carbonate + pyrite + chlorite ± sericite ± biotite ± tourmaline. Other gold-bearing quartz veins in the area trend at 270° and are base-metal rich. They contain sphalerite + galena + pyrrhotite + pyrite ± arsenopyrite ± chalcopyrite and reflect a separate mineralizing event from the Crestaurum Shear Zone.

Early mineralizing events in the area include syn-volcanic pyrite + pyrrhotite stockworks, magnetite-bearing banded iron formation, and post-volcanic quartz vein-hosted molybdenite within the tonalite west of the Crestaurum Shear Zone. This molybdenite mineralization has been dated by Re-Os at ca. 2680 ± 19 Ma and is significantly older than the syn- to late-D2 Crestaurum mineralization. On the local scale, these older mineralizing events are candidates as proto-ores for the Crestaurum deposit.