Controls on Copper-and Gold Ore-Forming Fertility of Arc Magmas

Robert Loucks 20 November 2013

Fig. 1 Do the controls on Cu-ore-forming magmatic fertility operate at the scale of individual igneous
complexes or much larger scale? This map shows the distribution of Cenozoic magmatic-
hydrothermal porphyry copper (goldsilvermolybdenum) and copper-bearing gold-rich epithermal
and porphyry deposits in the central Andes. Green symbols represent deposits of Paleogene age,
mainly late Eocene and earliest Oligocene. Red symbols represent deposits of Neogene age. Squares
are gold-rich intermediate- and high-sulfidation epithermal deposits and porphyry gold (copper)
deposits; circles are porphyry copper ( gold molybdenum) deposits. It is striking that the latitude
interval 1926S that was richly productive of giant porphyry coppers in the late Eocene has
continued to be magmatically active up to the present time, but has been metallogenically
unproductive for the past 25 Ma, whereas the latitude interval 2934S that was magmatically active
but metallogenically unproductive in the Paleogene became richly productive of copper and gold
copper deposits in the Neogene. In the interval 1719S, the metallogeny switched from copper-
dominant in the Eocene to gold-dominant in the Neogene, and migrated inland. South of El Teniente,
the Southern Volcanic Zone in the latitude interval 3547S has been magmatically active but
metallogenically unproductive for copper throughout the Cenozoic. The two Neogene ore provinces
along the west side of the NeogeneQuaternary Altiplano uplift and along the west side of the Sierras
Pampeanas Neogene thrust and fold belt are coincident in time and space with latitude intervals of
strong orogenic deformation by agents illustrated in blue. Depth contours on Wadati-Benioff zone
(Cahill & Isacks 1992) flare eastward where the Nazca plate is buoyed up by the thick crust of the
Nazca Ridge (top of map) and by the young, warm Juan Fernandez Ridge (8.5 Ma at east end; < 1 Ma
near the current location of the Juan Fernandez hotspot (Farley et al. 1993; Flueh et al. 1998). Shaded
areas on the seafloor are shallower than 4 km depth (von Huene et al. 1997). The oldest ocean floor at
the trench is Chron 23 (58 Ma) at the PeruChile bend (Arica orocline), where the slab dip is relatively
steep at ~34 (Cahill & Isacks 1992). The relative-motion vectors of the Nazca and South America
plates (7881 mm/yr) are from DeMets et al. (1990). The plate-convergence vector is decomposed
into vector components perpendicular to (dashed light blue arrows) and parallel to (dashed dark blue
arrows) the trench on the north and south sides of the Arica bend at the PeruChile border. North and
south of Arica, the trench-parallel components of the plate-convergence vectors have opposing
directions that converge to produce compression that has caused crustal thickening and uplift of the
Altiplano region (Dewey & Lamb 1992) and oroclinal bending by more than 30 during the past 20
Ma (MacFadden et al. 1995). Grey triangles schematically represent the distribution of Quaternary
volcanic cones (Isacks 1988), which are absent above the flattest parts of the slab in central Peru and
in Chile at 2933S, where the South American Plate has over-ridden the buoyant Nazca Ridge and
Juan Fernandez Ridge.
The take-away messages from this timespace distribution of ore deposits are that: (1) the
controls on metallogenic fertility operate not at the at the scale of individual magmatic centres, but
rather over hundreds of kilometres of arc length including many magmatic centres; and (2) the ability
of certain arc segments to turn on and shut off metallogenic activity and migrate fore and aft while
remaining magmatically active implies that copper metallogenic fertility is not due to recycling pre-
existing Cu enrichments within the lithosphere, such as often appears to be the case for tin,
molybdenum, uranium, and fluorine ore provinces. It is evident from its transient provinciality that
magmatic fertility for copper metallogeny cannot be explained by serendipitous crustal contamination
scenarios, such as assimilation of limestone, redbeds, coal, or sulfidic black shales. Neither can it be
explained by serendipitous subduction of local compositional anomalies in the oceanic lithosphere
such as volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits or serpentinised fracture zones. Explanations of copper
metallogenic provinces must invoke processes that transcend chemical heterogeneity in local
environments.
The late Eoceneearly Oligocene ore belt on the map developed during waning stages of a
period of Cordilleran orogeny that appears to be related to the collision of Africa-Arabia with Eurasia,
which closed the western Tethys, stalled the Afro-Arabian plate, and caused the full spreading rate on
the mid-Atlantic Ridge to be transmitted as accelerated westward migration of the Americas, causing
them to over-ride their Pacific-margin subduction zones and induce a period of low-angle subduction
and Eocene orogenic deformation at latitudes from Montana to central Chile (Silver et al. 1998). The
two Neogene metallogenic belts represented by red symbols on the map are coincident in time and
space with latitude intervals of Neogene strong orogenic deformation by stress-focusing into
indentations in the over-riding plate, and by buoyant features (bathymetric highs) in the subducting
plate that drag along the base of the over-riding plate. The transient provinciality of copper
metallogeny along convergent plate margins is due to geodynamically imposed variations of tectonic
stress, which in turn affect the depth at which magmas are trapped and chemically differentiate by
fractional crystallisation (Loucks 2000; Loucks & Ballard 2002; Rohrlach 2002; Rohrlach & Loucks
2005).
Fig. 2A-D. Are copper-ore-forming arc magmas enriched in Cu? Whole-rock analyses of
Neogene and Quaternary calc-alkalic and tholeiitic volcanics and subvolcanic intrusives
compiled from published literature are plotted for the purpose of testing whether magmas in
arcs, or major segments of arcs, that are well endowed in magmatic-hydrothermal porphyry-
type and high-sulfidation epithermal-type Cu-Au deposits have systematically different Cu
contents than arc magma differentiation series from arc segments that are barren or poor in
magmatic-hydrothermal Cu deposits. Arcs or arc segments known to be richly mineralized
are coloured red or orange ("hot"); arc segments in which no or few significant
porphyry/epithermal Cu deposits are known are coloured green, blue or lavender ("cool").
There is nearly complete overlap among all the arrays, without significant distinction in initial
Cu endowment of mantle-derived magmas at the mafic end of the array. The comparison also
shows that Cu is depleted during magmatic differentiation (increasing wt % SiO2) to about
the same degree in all arcs, regardless of whether they are richly or poorly endowed with Cu
ore deposits in the age range of the rocks considered.
Fig. 3. Although they are not distinguished by unusual Cu enrichment, copper-ore-forming
arc magmas do have distinctive chemical features that assist mineral exploration. The
distinctive chemical features are systematic enrichments/depletions in some lithophile
elements. The distinctive features arise not in the melting source region of the magmas, but
rather by atypical trends of chemical differentiation by fractional crystallisation from the
same type of parent basaltic magma as produce metallogenically infertile differentiation series
in these examples. The whole-rock element ratios Sr/Y and V/Sc and the europium anomaly
ratioed to Yb effectively discriminate copper-ore-productive calc-alkalic magmatic
differentiation series (red) from those in adjacent, barren arc segments that produce Cu-
infertile differentiation series (green) along the same subduction zone from the same type of
basaltic parent magma. (Note that the trends of chemical differentition from low to high silica
diverge from the parental, low-silica basaltic end of each series.) The data for least-altered
samples of the Tampakan ore-stage suite are from Rohrlach & Loucks (2005). The data for
least-altered samples of the ore-stage Batu Hijau igneous suite are from Fiorentini & Garwin
(2010). El Teniente data and barren reference suites in all nine panels are compiled from
many published sources. The divergence of chemical trends of magmatic differentiation arise
because, in arc intervals undergoing orogeny, mantle-derived magmas tend to pond near the
Moho where they cool slowly and tend to last long enough to experience intermittent
replenishments from the mantle, with the result that after many cycles of crystallisation and
replenishment, felsic residual melts have inherited large accumulations of dissolved water and
sulfate and chlorine from all prior batches of magma. The lithophile elements plotted above
are commonly reported in published whole-rock analyses, so these discriminants permit
routine igneous petrologic literature to be tapped as a vast, inexpensive information resource
useful in identifying exploration targets (Loucks, 2012a, CET Quarterly News).
Fig. 4. The controls on magmatic fertility for gold metallogeny operate at the scale of geodynamically
imposed variations in tectonic stress regime, not at the scale of individual igneous complexes. I have
developed several chemical discriminants of gold-fertile igneous suites that distinguish relatively brief
gold metallogenic epochs and gold-productive arc segments within much larger, long-lived spans of
calc-alkalic and tholeiitic magmatism along the same convergent plate margin. To illustrate, the top
panel shows all available analyses of Plio-Pleistocene unaltered samples from the rich gold ore
province of southwestern Japan in comparison with all available analyses of rocks <10 Myr old in
unmineralised Japanese arc segments flanking the gold province on the northeast and southwest. In the
lower panel, all available analyses of fresh Neogene samples from the latitude interval spanning the
Maricunga-El Indio gold belt in the Central Andes are compared with all available analyses of
Neogene and Quaternary igneous rocks in Andean segments flanking the gold province north and
south. The basis of this and other discriminants of Au-fertile magmas is described in the June 2012
issue of the CET Quarterly News. Whereas Cu-ore-forming fertility is an emergent property of
distinctive processes of magmatic differentiation (Fig. 3), Au-ore-forming fertility is a primary
property of the parental mafic magmas, acquired by melting lithospheric mantle to much higher
degrees than the mainly asthenospheric mantle source of Au-infertile ordinary arc magmas, as
described by Hronsky et al (2012, Mineralium Deposita) and by Loucks (2012, CET Quarterly News).