Geology, mineralogy and occurrence of gold minerals in oxide part of the Shadan copper-gold mine, Southern Khorasan

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Earth Science ,Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians

3 Research Institute for Earth Sciences, Geological Survey of Iran, Tehran, Iran

4 Department of Earth Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran and Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, Bochum, Germany

Abstract

The Shadan Porphyry copper-gold ore is located in eastern margin of Tertiary volcano-plutonic belt of the Lut block. Hydrothermal Magmatic solutions of granite-granodiorite stock porphyry rocks that are generally intruded  in the Eocene volcanic rocks resulted  in vast potassic, potassic-phyllic, argillic and propylitic alterations in the area. Mineralization in the Shadan ore has been occurred as porphyry, epithermal-vein and hydrothermal breccia. Mineralization is mostly occurred as scattered, stockworks in granodioritic mass and vein type as sulphide, quartz and carbonate veins, trending northwest-southeast. Mineralization are recognized in two types: oxidized (hematite, magnetite, limonite, goethite)  and sulfide (pyrotite, chalcopyrite ,bornite and covelite). According to microscopic and thermometric studies, genesis of the Shadan copper- gold ore is porphyry-epitermal. The results analysis on the primary ore show that the main metallic minerals in the ore are copper and gold. The EDX spectrum of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) on 53 gold particles shows that gold particles are in the form of native gold and electrum is between 1 and 10 microns in size. The occurrence of gold includes mono gold, trapping gold and intergranular gold. Gold grains are within the limonite, and hematite .

Keywords

References

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Iranian Journal of Crystallography and Mineralogy
Volume 31, Issue 3 - Serial Number 91
October 2023
Pages 553-564

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History

  • Receive Date: 28 January 2023
  • Revise Date: 15 February 2023
  • Accept Date: 13 March 2023

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