Journal article
Uranium and Sm isotope studies of the supergiant Olympic Dam Cu-Au-U-Ag deposit, South Australia
M Kirchenbaur, R Maas, K Ehrig, VS Kamenetsky, E Strub, C Ballhaus, C Münker
Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta | PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | Published : 2016
Abstract
The Olympic Dam Cu-U-Au-Ag deposit in the Archean-Proterozoic Gawler Craton (South Australia) is a type example of the iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) spectrum of deposits and one of the largest Cu-U-Au resources known. Mineralization is hosted in a lithologically and texturally diverse, hematite-rich breccia complex developed within a granite of the 1.59 Ga Gawler Silicic Province. Emerging evidence indicates that both the breccia complex and its metal content developed over ~1000 Ma, responding to major tectonic events, e.g., at 1300-1100, 825 and 500 Ma. However, metal sources and exact mechanism/s of ore formation remain poorly known.New high-precision 238U/235U data for a set of 40 whole ..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
The financial support, sample provision and approval to publish by BHP Billiton is gratefully acknowledged. MK currently receives post-doctoral fellowship funding by DFG grant KI 1802/1-1, which is highly appreciated. VSK, KE and RM acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage Grant LP130100438). P. Sprung, A. Bragagni and A. Wainwright are thanked for discussions. We are grateful for the MC-ICP-MS and clean lab support at Cologne/Bonn provided by F. Wombacher. We thank Melissa Murphy, three anonymous reviewers and handling editor Stefan Weyer for their extensive and constructive comments that significantly improved the manuscript.