The Dorn gold deposit in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica: Structure, hydrothermal alteration, and implications for the Gondwana Pacific margin

The Dorn gold deposit in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica is a fault related gold-only deposit and it represents the first described occurrence of gold mineralization in Paleozoic terranes of the Antarctic continent. The deposit is hosted in lower greenschist facies Middle Cambrian metavolcanic an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Gondwana Research
Main Authors: CRISPINI, LAURA, FEDERICO, LAURA, CAPPONI, GIOVANNI, TALARICO, FRANCO MARIA
Other Authors: Crispini, Laura, Federico, Laura, Capponi, Giovanni, Talarico, FRANCO MARIA
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2011
Subjects:
Orogenic gold
Syntectonic vein
Hydrothermal alteration
Fault zone
Antarctica
Ross-Delamerian Orogeny
Antarctic
Bowers
Pacific
The Antarctic
Victoria Land
Antarc*
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11365/8275
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2010.03.010
Description
Summary:The Dorn gold deposit in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica is a fault related gold-only deposit and it represents the first described occurrence of gold mineralization in Paleozoic terranes of the Antarctic continent. The deposit is hosted in lower greenschist facies Middle Cambrian metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks of the Bowers terrane. Gold-bearing veins are located in a brittle-ductile reverse high-strain zone, which was produced by transpressional deformation that overprints the structures of the Cambrian-Ordovician Ross Orogeny. The vein system is surrounded by a hydrothermal alteration zone that is as much as 300-m-wide, where the host rocks are partially to completely transformed into Fe-Mg carbonate-rich rocks with different degrees of replacement of the original mineralogy and texture. The type of host rock, the temperature estimates for mineralization from 290-320 degrees C, the quartz dominant vein system with sulfides and Fe-rich carbonates, and the controlling structures linked to a convergent margin tectonic setting together suggest that this mineralized vein system can be classified as an orogenic gold deposit. Close analogies are found with deposits of the Stawell zone in western Victoria, which is consistent with the correlation between units and hydrothermal events in northern Victoria land and southeastern Australia. (C) 2010 International Association for Gondwana Research. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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