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Metamorphosed Ore Deposits

Because of the obliterative effects of metamorphism, the primary origins of ore deposits found in metamorphic rocks are often controversial. Slack et al. [1993] studied mineralization in the large Broken Hill District of Australia, and demonstrated that the metamorphosed base metal ores originally formed during interaction of hydrothermal fluids with non-marine evaporitic sediments in a Proterozoic continental rift setting. Gemmell et al. [1992] described a stratigraphically conformable Zn-Pb-Ag deposit in Argentina whose geologic and isotopic features support an origin as a shallow marine sedimentary exhalative sulfide deposit, rather than a contact metamorphic magma-hydrothermal deposit as proposed earlier. A metamorphosed submarine hydrothermal Mn deposit in North Carolina whose geochemical signatures survived metamorphism to amphibolite facies conditions was described by Flohr [1992]. From a textural and mineralogical standpoint, Craig and Vokes [1993] reviewed the effects of metamorphism on pyritic ores.



U.S. National Report to IUGG, 1991-1994
Rev. Geophys. Vol. 33 Suppl., © 1995 American Geophysical Union