Altered volcanic rocks: a guide to description and interpretation

Altered volcanic rocks is designed to be a practical guide for systematically describing and interpreting altered volcanic rocks, and determining their significance in terms of mineral deposit prospectivity. It discusses the processes and products of the common alteration styles in submarine volcanic settings, including diagenetic alteration, burial metamorphism, hydrothermal alteration and mineralisation, and intrusion-related. It takes a multi-disciplinary approach combining alteration mineralogy, textures and intensity with lithogeochemistry to constrain the characteristics of different alteration styles. To emphasize the ore deposit context, the book includes a major chapter that uses innovative illustrated data sheets to describe the main alteration facies or zones associated with a variety of volcanic-hosted massive sulfide (VHMS) deposits. The final chapter describes and presents examples of how altered rocks and their characteristics may be applied to exploration for volcanic-hosted deposits. The book contains 127 figures and 66 full-page alteration data sheets, which include 274 colour photographs that illustrate the textural and mineralogical characteristics of different alteration intensities, facies and styles.