Ankerite

About: Ankerite is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 859 publications have been published within this topic receiving 23960 citations.

A salt diapir-related Mississippi Valley-type deposit: the Bou Jaber Pb-Zn-Ba-F deposit, Tunisia: fluid inclusion and isotope study

Abstract: The Bou Jaber Ba-F-Pb-Zn deposit is located at the edge of the Bou Jaber Triassic salt diapir in the Tunisia Salt Diapir Province. The ores are unconformity and fault-controlled and occur as subvertical column-shaped bodies developed in dissolution-collapse breccias and in cavities within the Late Aptian platform carbonate rocks, which are covered unconformably by impermeable shales and marls of the Fahdene Formation (Late Albian–Cenomanian age). The host rock is hydrothermally altered to ankerite proximal to and within the ore bodies. Quartz, as fine-grained bipyramidal crystals, formed during hydrothermal alteration of the host rocks. The ore mineral assemblage is composed of barite, fluorite, sphalerite, and galena in decreasing abundance. The ore zones outline distinct depositional events: sphalerite-galena, barite-ankerite, and fluorite. Fluid inclusions, commonly oil-rich, have distinct fluid salinities and homogenization temperatures for each of these events: sphalerite-galena (17 to 24 wt% NaCl eq., and Th from 112 to 136 °C); ankerite-barite (11 to 17 wt% NaCl eq., and Th from 100 to 130 °C); fluorite (19 to 21 wt% NaCl eq., Th from 140 to 165 °C). The mean temperature of the ore fluids decreased from sphalerite (125 °C) to barite (115 °C) and increased during fluorite deposition (152 °C); then decreased to ∼110 °C during late calcite precipitation. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses of fluid inclusions in fluorite are metal rich (hundreds to thousands ppm Pb, Zn, Cu, Fe) but the inclusions in barite are deficient in Pb, Zn, Cu, Fe. Inclusions in fluorite have Cl/Br and Na/Br ratios of several thousand, consistent with dissolution of halite while the inclusions analysed in barite have values lower than seawater which are indicative of a Br-enriched brine derived from evaporation plus a component of halite dissolution. The salinity of the barite-hosted fluid inclusions is less than obtained simply by the evaporation of seawater to halite saturation and requires a dilution of more than two times by meteoric water. The higher K/Na values in fluid inclusions from barite suggest that the brines interacted with K-rich rocks in the basement or siliciclastic sediments in the basin. Carbonate gangue minerals (ankerite and calcite) have δ13C and δ18O values that are close to the carbonate host rock and indicate fluid equilibrium between carbonate host rocks and hydrothermal brines. The δ34S values for sphalerite and galena fall within a narrow range (1 to 10 ‰) with a bulk value of 7.5 ‰, indicating a homogeneous source of sulfur. The δ34S values of barite are also relatively homogeneous (22 ‰), with 6 ‰ higher than the δ34S of local and regional Triassic evaporites (15 ‰). The latter are believed to be the source of sulfate. Temperature of deposition together with sulfur isotope data indicate that the reduced sulfur in sulfides was derived through thermochemical sulfate reduction of Triassic sulfate via hydrocarbons produced probably from Late Cretaceous source rocks. The 87Sr/86Sr ratio in the Bou Jaber barite (0.709821 to 0.711408) together with the lead isotope values of Bou Jaber galena (206Pb/204Pb = 18.699 to 18.737; 207Pb/204Pb = 15.635 to 15.708 and 208Pb/204Pb = 38.321 to 38.947) show that metals were extracted from homogeneous crustal source(s). The tectonic setting of the Bou Jaber ore deposit, the carbonate nature of the host rocks, the epigenetic style of the mineralization and the mineral associations, together with sulfur and oxygen isotope data and fluid inclusion data show that the Bou Jaber lead-zinc mineralization has the major characteristics of a salt diapir-related Mississippi Valley-type (MVT) deposit with superimposed events of fluorite and of barite deposition. Field relations are consistent with mineral deposition during the Eocene–Miocene Alpine orogeny from multiple hydrothermal events: (1) Zn-Pb sulfides formed by mixing of two fluids: one fluid metal-rich but reduced sulfur-poor and a second fluid reduced sulfur-rich; (2) barite precipitation involved the influx of a meteoric water component that mixed with a barium-rich fluid; and (3) fluorite precipitated from a highly saline fluid with higher temperatures.

In situ Sr isotope analysis of apatite by LA-MC-ICPMS: constraints on the evolution of ore fluids of the Yinachang Fe-Cu-REE deposit, Southwest China

Abstract: Apatite is a ubiquitous accessory mineral in a variety of rocks and hydrothermal ores. Strontium isotopes of apatite are well known to retain petrogenetic information and have been widely used to investigate the origin of igneous rocks, but such attempts have rarely been made to constrain ore-forming processes of hydrothermal systems. We here report in situ LA-MC-ICPMS Sr isotope data of apatite from the ~1660-Ma Yinachang Fe-Cu-REE deposit, Southwest China. The formation of this deposit was coeval to the emplacement of regionally distributed doleritic intrusions within a continental-rift setting. The deposit has a paragenetic sequence consisting of sodic alteration (stage I), magnetite mineralization (stage II), Cu sulfide and REE mineralization (stage III), and final barren calcite veining (stage IV). The stage II and III assemblages contain abundant apatite, allowing to investigate the temporal evolution of the Sr isotopic composition of the ore fluids. Apatite of stage II (Apt II) is associated with fluorite, magnetite, and siderite, whereas apatite from stage III (Apt III) occurs intimately intergrown with ankerite and Cu sulfides. Apt II has 87Sr/86Sr ratios varying from 0.70377 to 0.71074, broadly compatible with the coeval doleritic intrusions (0.70592 to 0.70692), indicating that ore-forming fluids responsible for stage II magnetite mineralization were largely equilibrated with mantle-derived mafic rocks. In contrast, Apt III has distinctly higher 87Sr/86Sr ratios from 0.71021 to 0.72114, which are interpreted to reflect external radiogenic Sr, likely derived from the Paleoproterozoic strata. Some Apt III crystals have undergone extensive metasomatism indicated by abundant monazite inclusions. The metasomatized apatite has much higher 87Sr/86Sr ratios up to 0.73721, which is consistent with bulk-rock Rb-Sr isotope analyses of Cu ores with 87Sr/86Sri from 0.71906 to 0.74632. The elevated 87Sr/86Sr values of metasomatized apatite and bulk Cu ores indicate that later fluids were dominated by highly radiogenic Sr equilibrated with the Paleoproterozoic country rocks. Results of this study highlight the utilization of in situ Sr isotope analysis of apatite in unraveling the evolution of hydrothermal systems.