Crustal Imaging and Characterization Team
Task objectives are to aid in understanding the source of ore-fluid components and geochemical processes that form ore deposits by the chemical analyses of cations and anions in fluid inclusions in hydrothermal minerals. These data, when integrated with age, isotopic, geologic, fluid inclusion gas, and geochemical data are of fundamental importance in effectively developing robust mineral deposit and geoenvironmental models. Fluid inclusion compositional data is being used to understand fluid-rock reactions, the migrational history of deep crustal fluids, and to develop models for the genesis of a variety of deposit types and assess the regional impact of hydrothermal systems that are geologically and geochemically realistic. Recent results have opened new avenues of study and demonstrate that this new method is an important tool in ore genesis studies.
Obtaining additional samples and collaborators for sedex deposit studies is a priority this year as it will be an important contribution to several efforts currently underway for the Mineral Resources Program's national assessment projects. These results will help constrain the origin of the brines, map brine provinces, and identify subsequent compositional modifications resulting from mineral precipitation, fluid-rock reactions, and fluid mixing involved in the formation of sedex deposits.
Another important effort will be to continue a new collaboration started last year with Colorado School of Mines, AMIRA, and CODES on the origin of brines that formed the African Copper Belt. This study will be expanded to include samples from sediment hosted copper deposits from around the world. A collaboration with B. Rusk on the origin and compositions of fluids that form porphyry Cu (Mo-Au) deposits will continue this year. We will continue to augment data from our current sample with noble gas analyses, which will further characterize sources and genesis of these fluids. The sources of brines that formed Fe-Cu-Au deposits have previously not been established, but might be vital in understanding the geneses of these enormous deposits. Collaborative studies of this deposit type will be pursued this year to gain samples for analyses.
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Mineral Resources |
Eastern / Central / Western / Alaska / Minerals Information |
| Crustal Imaging & Characterization / Spatial Data |
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://crustal.usgs.gov
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