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Ferricretes and deep weathering profiles of the Puzzler Walls, Charters Towers, north Queensland

The Charters Towers district in semi-arid tropical north Queensland has large areas of transported and residual cover. It is host to several major gold and base-metal deposits and has a long history of mineral exploration, but there have been few studies of its regolith. As future exploration will target mineralisation under cover, an understanding of the regolith is essential for interpretation of geochemical and geophysical data. Transported regolith presents further complications. The Puzzler Walls, about 10 km east of Charters Towers, are a group of mesas capped by siliceous and ferruginous duricrusts developed on thick units of deeply weathered Tertiary sediments and Palaeozoic granitoids. The granitoids host mesothennal quartz-vein type gold mineralisation, commonly with associated sulphides, particularly galena. Analysis of ferruginous material from the mesas reveals two main types of iron accumulations: an older ferruginous gravel developed from the weathering of granodiorite, and a younger nodular ferricrete overlying Tertiary/Quaternary sediments. These materials are distinguished on the basis of their position in the landscape, micromorphology (petrology), geochemistry, and mineralogy. The older (Tertiary?) ferricretes have developed in situ on the granodiorite. They consist of ferruginous aggregates of the underlying mottled saprolite, formed by the relative accumulation of iron, as other, more soluble, elements were leached out. The younger (Tertiary-Quaternary?) nodular ferricretes consist of reworked or transported iron nodules coated by several generations of goethite rinds. These nodular ferricretes are interpreted as having formed by the accumulation of iron, precipitated from groundwater on valley sides or oxidation fronts. The geochemistry of both ferricrete types reveals enrichment of transition metals, some rare-earth elements, and elements commonly associated with gold mineralisation in the Charters Towers district (Pb, Sb, As). The last may be useful pathfinders in exploration. It still needs to be established whether this enrichment results from proximity to underlying mineralisation .

Simple

Identification info

Date (Publication)
1996-01-01T00:00:00
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/81431

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Publisher

Australian Geological Survey Organisation

Canberra
Author

Rivers, C.J.

1
Author

Eggleton, T.

2
Author

Beams, S.D.

3
Name

AGSO Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics

Issue identification

16:3:203-211

Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Custodian

Corp

Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
Unknown

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Website

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

Keywords
  • GA Publication

  • Journal

Keywords
  • QLD

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
  • Earth Sciences

Keywords
  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
OnLine resource

Journal article (pdf)

Journal article (pdf)

Distribution format
  • pdf

Resource lineage

Statement

Unknown

Hierarchy level
Non geographic dataset
Other

GA Publication

Description

Source data not available.

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/fae9173a-7174-71e4-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

AGSO BMR Journal

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/81431

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/fae9173a-7174-71e4-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Date info (Revision)
2018-04-20T06:07:25
Date info (Creation)
2014-06-03T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W



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