U-Pb dating of minerals in alteration halos of Superior Province massive sulfide deposits: syngenesis versus metamorphism

U-Pb geochronology of igneous zircon from rhyolitic host rocks to the Archean Kidd Creek, Geco and Winston Lake massive sulfide deposits, in the Superior Province of Ontario, shows that volcanism, which accompanied mineralization, occupied a narrow time span (2717±2 Ma, 2720±2 Ma and 2723±2 Ma, respectively). Precise ages of hydrothermal monazite, allanite and rutile from alteration zones surrounding the above deposits indicate that these minerals crystallized 40–70 million years after volcanism. Monazite from Kidd Creek mine is 2659±3 Ma old, in agreement with spatially associated 2664±25 Ma old rutile. Monazite from a biotite schist at Geoco mine gives a similar age of 2661±1 Ma. However, monazite from a sericite schist, which hosts the ore at Geco mine, is 2675±2 Ma old. Abraded large monazite grains from three units in the Winston Lake deposit are coeval with biotite crystallization and record an age of 2677±2 Ma, approximately the same as monazite in the sericite schist at Geco. Data points from allanite fractions from both the Winston Lake and Geco deposits fall on a Pb-Pb isochron that gives an age of 2672±5 Ma. Rutile from Winston Lake gives a younger age of 2651±6/-2 Ma and may date retrograde alteration of biotite to chlorite. The ca. 2676 Ma age of monazite from Winston Lake and in the sericite schist at Geco mine probably dates a regional metamorphic event that affected most of the southern Superior Province. The ca. 2660 Ma old monazite in the biotite schist at Geco mine and in the chlorite-sericite alteration at Kidd Creek may date later K-metasomatism caused by metamorphically derived fluids that were focussed along old fault structures. Such fluids were also responsible for local sulfide remobilization. Monazite and rutile are spatially associated with chlorite and sericite alterations at Kidd Creek. Their young ages indicate that these originally syngenetic mineral assemblages may have been significantly affected by regional metamorphism. Formation of monazite at all three deposits studied was a result of significant REE remobilization during metamorphism. The discrete character of syn-metamorphic hydrothermal activity in different units of the same deposit, as well as its synchroneity among different, widely separated deposits, requires a mechanism for episodic injection of heat and fluid into the crust on a regional scale. These activities are broadly coeval with, and probably related to, plutonism within adjacent metasedimentary subprovinces and middle to lower crustal metamorphism in the Superior Province.