Common threads in the Pine Creek, Tanami and Tennant Creek Au-mineral systems: sewing up new exploration strategies?  

Authors / CoAuthors

Wyborn, L.A.I. | Mernagh, T.P. | Ferenczi, P. | Wygralak, A.S. | Donnellan, N. | Crispe, A. | Doyle, N.

Abstract

A spatial link between granitic intrusions and significant gold deposits has long been recognised in the Pine Creek, Tanami and Tennant Creek areas. However, both locally in these areas, and globally in similar systems, there have been protracted debates as to whether or not the spatially-related granitic intrusions are an essential ingredient in the formation of adjacent gold deposits. None-the-less, it is increasingly being accepted that the granite intrusions do play an important role and a new class of granite-related conceptual exploration models are now emerging. The two best known are Thermal Aureole Gold (TAG, Wall and Taylor, 1990) or Intrusion-Related Gold (IRG, Sillitoe and Thompson, 1998). Key ingredients in the TAG or IRG models are ilmenite- to magnetite-stable granitic intrusions and fluids to transport the metals from these granites to the sites of deposition. The depositional sites are rarely within the intrusion itself, and deposits can occur up to 5 kms from the granite boundary. Wall (in press) noted that this style of deposit is commonly located in the tops and roof zones of plutons, commonly in anticlinorial zones. Globally significant gold deposits that have been assessed as TAG or IRG types include Muruntau (>100 Moz @ 2-3 g/t), Fort Knox (>5.6 Moz), Pogo (5.7 Moz @ 17.8 g/t) Obuasi (>49 Moz) and Campbell-Red Lake (>25 Moz @15 g/t) (Wall, in press; Thompson and Newberry, 2000). It is the aim of this paper to benchmark the district to regional scale parameters of gold mineralisation in the Pine Creek, Tanami and Tennant Creek areas against these conceptual models and note any implications for exploration strategies. This review will consider some other NT provinces, but not the Arunta Province as insufficient details on the granites and sedimentary/ metamorphic sequences are currently available to confidently predict the location of potential IRG or TAG environments.

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nonGeographicDataset

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61847

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• External PublicationAbstract

( Theme )

• geochemistry

( Theme )

• mineral deposits

( Theme )

• mineralogy

• AU-NT

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

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2005-01-01T00:00:00

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