Middle to early Late Ordovician hydrothermal veining in the Molong Volcanic Belt,northeastern Lachlan Fold Belt: Sedimentological evidence

Detrital volcanic and vein quartz, accompanied by felsic volcanic debris, occur as minor constituents in the Ordovician subduction‐related mafic volcanics of the Molong Volcanic Belt. In the western province of the Molong Volcanic Belt, detrital quartz is present in the three episodes of the mafic Volcanics. Volcanic quartz occurs in allochthonous limestone blocks in the Bendigonian Hensleigh Siltstone overlying the Mitchell Formation. The second volcanic episode (the Fairbridge Volcanics) commenced after a hiatus of approximately 20 million years and lasted around 10 million years from Darriwilian to Gisbornian time. Locally derived vein quartz, volcanic quartz and felsic detritus are concentrated at the bases of autochthonous Wahringa and Yuranigh Limestone Members of the volcanics and are extensive and abundant in basal beds of the regional Eastonian limestone body that transgressed over an eroded volcanic centre at Cargo. This early Eastonian debris, deposited early in an 8 million‐year volcanic hiatus preceding the final Ordovician Bolindian volcanism, establishes a pre‐Eastonian age for mineralisation at Cargo. It is inferred that the pauses in volcanism were preceded by magmatic fractionation, intrusion and hydrothermal activity and followed by erosion, subsidence and deposition of autochthonous limestones. Minor occurrences of vein and volcanic quartz are found in Bolindian volcanogenic sediments of the third volcanic phase. It is concluded that hydrothermal vein formation (and mineralisation by inference) was associated with pauses in volcanic activity throughout the Middle to early Late Ordovician over a wide area in the western province, culminating in the mineralisation at Cargo and Copper Hill near Molong. Volcanism in the eastern province of the Molong Volcanic Belt was continuous from at least Darriwilian to latest Ordovician time. Here, detrital hydrothermal vein quartz and volcanic quartz and felsic detritus are distributed through late Middle and early Late Ordovician turbidites of the Weemalla Formation. The possible existence of cycles in the source area like those of the Fairbridge Volcanics is masked by the distal nature of these deposits. Vein formation occurred in both provinces from late Middle Ordovician to early Late Ordovician, long before the formation of the world‐class mineral deposit at Cadia associated with the latest Ordovician Cadia Monzonite.