Journal article
EARLY, DEEP MAGNETITE-FLUORAPATITE MINERALIZATION AT THE OLYMPIC DAM Cu-U-Au-Ag DEPOSIT, SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Olga B Apukhtina, Vadim S Kamenetsky, Kathy Ehrig, Maya B Kamenetsky, Roland Maas, Jay Thompson, Jocelyn McPhie, Cristiana L Ciobanu, Nigel J Cook
Economic Geology | Society of Economic Geologists | Published : 2017
Abstract
The Olympic Dam iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG)-uranium-silver deposit (South Australia) is hosted in the large Olympic Dam breccia complex within the ~1.59 Ga Roxby Downs Granite. This breccia complex formed through multiple stages of hydrothermal activity and texturally destructive brecciation that affected the granite. The deepest diamond drill hole to date (RD2773, end at ~2,329 m) intersected weakly altered, in situbrecciated granite (~370–2,329 m) and a quartz-phyric felsic unit (~2,010–2,265 m). These two rock units host coarse-grained hydrothermal minerals, from ~2,150 m to the end of the drill hole. The main minerals in this assemblage are magnetite (± hematite), pyrite, fluorapatite,..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This study was funded by BHP Billiton Olympic Dam and the Australian Research Council (Linkage Grant LP 130100438 "The supergiant Olympic Dam U-Cu-Au-REE ore deposit: Towards a new genetic model"). Cristiana L. Ciobanu and Nigel J. Cook acknowledge funding from the "FOX" project ("Trace elements in iron oxides: Deportment, distribution and application in ore genesis, geochronology, exploration and mineral processing"), supported by BHP Billiton Olympic Dam and the South Australian Mining and Petroleum Services Centre of Excellence. We gratefully acknowledge Paul Olin, Sebastien Meffre, and Karsten Goemann (all University of Tasmania) for assistance with various LA-ICPMS analyses. Alexander Cherry and Matthew Ferguson (Ph.D. students at the University of Tasmania) are thanked for a careful reading of the manuscript. Thoughtful comments by journal reviewers (Leonid A. Neymark and an anonymous referee) and by associate editor John F. Slack helped improve clarity and presentation.