Studies of VHMS-related alteration: geochemical and mineralogical vectors to ore. CODES/AMIRA Project P.439 Report 3, October 1996

Abstract

Volcanic-hosted massive sulphide deposits (VHMS) provide a significant contribution to the total zinc, copper, lead, silver and gold production in Australia and continue to be a major target for most base metal explorers. However, due to the geological complexity of ancient submarine volcanic terrains, new VHMS deposits are becoming extremely difficult to discover, especially deposits that are buried more than a few tens of metres below the surface. To complement the conventional multidisciplinary approach utilising geology, geophysics and geochemistry, a new attack to the problem is developed here which involves the integration of volcanic facies analysis with alteration geochemical and mineral chemical studies to develop a set of vectors to guide explorers toward ore-grade mineralisation. The research concentrates on three productive submarine volcanic belts in Australia: the Mount Read Volcanics (MRV) in western Tasmania, the Mount Windsor Volcanics (MWV) in northern Queensland, and the Archean Murchison volcanic province in western Australia.