Geothermal-type alteration in a burial metamorphosed volcanic pile, central Chile

Abstract The Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary volcanic sequences in the Chilean Andes are affected by burial metamorphism. For example, in central Chile (between 32°30'and 35°S), the Abanico Formation, a folded upper Cretaceous to Palaeogene unit composed of basic lavas, tuffs and ash flows of intermediate composition and volcaniclastic sandstones, is characterized by heulandite- to laumontite-bearing zeolite facies assemblages in its upper part passing with depth to prehnite–pumpellyite facies assemblages.
However, at c . 33°30'S in the Abanico Hill area, located just east of a graben at Santiago (the longitudinal Central Valley), the alteration pattern is unrelated to stratigraphic depth. It is characterized by a lateral increase in grade defined by assemblages with yugawaralite (reported for the first time in the Andes) laumontite, then wairakite ± epidote, and finally with abundant epidote successively closer to the graben boundary. This pattern was formed in a palaeogeothermal system with a high- T and a very low- P gradient. Geothermal alteration has also been inferred from the border zone of a Neogene caldera in the Abanico Hill area, and from the western fault boundary of the graben.
These expressions of geothermal alteration, together with the occurrence of caldera structures, the huge volume of ignimbrites and numerous epithermal precious metal deposits of late Cretaceous and Tertiary age in central and northern Chile, suggest that fossil geothermal systems of this age are probably common features in the Chilean Andes.