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