| Title | Magnetite as an Indicator Mineral in the Exploration of Porphyry Deposits: A Case Study in Till near the Mount Polley Cu-Au Deposit, British Columbia, Canada |
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| Author | Pisiak, L K; Canil, D; Plouffe, A ; Ferbey, T; Lacourse, T |
| Source | Economic geology and the bulletin of the Society of Economic Geologists vol. 112, 2017 p. 919-940, https://doi.org/10.2113/econgeo.112.4.919  Open Access |
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| Year | 2017 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20170019 |
| Publisher | Society of Economic Geologists |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | digital; on-line |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | British Columbia |
| NTS | 93A/05; 93A/06; 93A/11; 93A/12 |
| Area | Quesnel Lake |
| Lat/Long WENS | -121.9167 -121.4167 52.6667 52.4167 |
| Subjects | economic geology; geochemistry; metallic minerals; sedimentology; magnetite; igneous rocks; metamorphic rocks; porphyry deposits; drift geochemistry; soil geochemistry; stream water geochemistry; till
geochemistry; trace element geochemistry; sediment tracer techniques; tills; trace element geochemistry; indicator elements; felsic intrusive rocks; Triassic; Jurassic |
| Illustrations | location maps; geological sketch maps; photographs; photomicrographs; graphs |
| Released | 2017 04 03 |
| Abstract | The investigation of this paper focused on whether the composition of hydrothermal ore-related magnetite in till could be used to locate porphyry deposits in terrane where glacial overburden overlies
rocks that host porphyry Cu-Au mineralization. This hypothesis was tested using 20 till samples collected in a ~900-km2 area surrounding the Mount Polley porphyry Cu-Au deposit in south-central British Columbia, Canada. At least 100 magnetite grains
were randomly selected from the magnetic fraction of each till sample. Nineteen trace elements in ~50 magnetite grains in each sample were measured by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasmamass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The large beam or raster
size used for laser ablation (to 100 mm) homogenizes any heterogeneous trace element distributions in magnetite that result from oxy-exsolution and/or and dissolution/reprecipitation, avoiding this issue with the few micron size of an electron beam.
Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) performed on a compilation of magnetite compositions measured by LA-ICP-MS from worldwide porphyry deposits and intrusive igneous rocks define the chemical signature (Mg, Al, Ti, V, Mn, Co, Ni) of hydrothermal
magnetite exclusive to porphyry systems. Application of our two LDA models to the 985 magnetite compositions we measured in the till samples surrounding Mount Polley showed anomalous amounts of hydrothermal magnetite grains in till up to 2.5 km
west-southwest and 4 km northwest of the deposit-a pattern that is consistent with the ice-flow history of the region. Our LDA models for magnetite trace element compositions have strong potential to be an effective tool in exploration for buried
porphyry systems. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 300538 |
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