In Situ Monazite Dating of Sediment-Hosted Stratiform Copper Mineralization in the Redstone Copper Belt, Northwest Territories, Canada: Cupriferous Fluid Flow Late in the Evolution of a Neoproterozoic Sedimentary Basin

• Published in: Economic Geology
• Main Authors: Milton, J., Hickey, K., Gleeson, S., Falck, H., Allaz, J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Canada; Coates; Northwest Territories; Redstone River; Mackenzie mountains
• Online Access: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_2632947

The 300-km-long Redstone copper belt in the Mackenzie Mountains, Northwest Territories, Canada, is composed of a series of sediment-hosted stratiform copper (SSC) deposits hosted in Neoproterozoic fault-bounded intracontinental rift basins. Mineralization at Coates Lake, the largest of these deposits, is concentrated within microbial laminite layers in the transition zone between underlying continental red beds of the Redstone River Formation and overlying marine carbonates of the Coppercap Formation. Disseminated cupriferous sulfides (chalcopyrite, bornite, and chalcocite) form part of a late diagenetic mineral association with dolomite, K-feldspar, albite, quartz, monazite, apatite, and pyrite that partially replaced detrital and early diagenetic minerals, including calcite cements, sulfate, and earlier generations of pyrite. Bornite (± minor chalcopyrite), calcite, dolomite, quartz, K-feldspar, and albite were also deposited in rare bedding-parallel veins adjacent to the lowermost mineralized microbial laminite layer in the transition zone. The absolute timing of mineralization was constrained by in situ U-Th-Pb chemical dating of monazite from four samples hosting disseminated SSC-type mineralization. The monazite have rounded, Th-U-heavy rare earth element-rich, detrital cores surrounded by Th-U-poor, light rare earth element-S-Sr-rich rims. The rim stage of monazite growth is intergrown with and enveloped by cupriferous sulfide and is paragenetically constrained as being part of the disseminated SSC-type mineralizing event. Eleven detrital cores yielded dates between 1843 and 1025 Ma, older than the depositional age of transition zone strata previously constrained to be between 775 and 732 Ma. Ten monazite rims yielded dates between 661 and 607 Ma. A weighted average date of 635 ± 13 Ma provides a maximum estimate, and is our preferred interpretation, for the absolute age of all copper mineralization at the Coates Lake deposit. Mineralization formed approximately 100 m.y. after deposition of the host ...