Sedimentary rock-hosted gold mineralization at Zalaa Uul, Khentii Range, northeastern Mongolia |
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Authors: | J K Cluer K Enkhtuvshin P Robertshaw |
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Institution: | (1) Cameco (US) Inc, 5450 Riggins Court, Suite 6, Reno, Nevada 89502, USA e-mail: kcluer@aol.com, US;(2) Harrods Minerals Mongolia Ltd, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, MN;(3) Robertshaw Geophysics, 111 Middleton Crescent, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7J 2W5, Canada, CA |
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Abstract: | The recently discovered Zalaa Uul occurrence exhibits gold concentrations averaging about 1 ppm in silicified breccias as
wide as 100 m. Most mineralization is hosted in brecciated siltstone, shale, and calcareous sandstone of the Permian Ulz Formation
that exhibits multiple stages of silicification. Rock geochemistry indicates: (1) gold is strongly associated with arsenic
and silver; (2) antimony, tellurium and thallium are locally anomalous but poorly correlated with gold; (3) mercury is spatially
correlated with copper; and (4) Ag:Au ratios are low (≤3). A low-level Cu–(Hg + Sb, ±Au + As) anomaly occurs over an hypothesized
feeder breccia. The feeder breccia occupies a major northwest-dipping reverse fault zone between dominantly greenschist-facies
phyllite and schist of the Upper Proterozoic Toshint Formation and unmetamorphosed marine clastic rocks of the permian Ulz
Formation. Ground magnetometer surveys identified a magnetic body, thought to represent part of an intrusive complex at depth,
within the reverse fault zone, down-plunge from the ∼70° northwest-dipping feeder breccia. Altered rhyolite dikes crop out
in the vicinity of the feeder breccia. The potentially economic gold grades are 2 to 3 km outboard of the feeder breccia and
may represent the distal Au + As zone of an intrusion-related mineralizing system. Alteration, regional structural and geophysical
setting, host rocks and trace element geochemistry, and finely disseminated nature of gold particles are similar to Carlin-type
gold systems in the Great Basin of the western USA, but local geology, magnetically mapped intrusive bodies, and trace element
zonation suggest affinity with some intrusion-related gold systems.
Received: 28 February 1999 / Accepted: 3 March 2000 |
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