Geologic observations in the San Marcos area, Coahuila, Mexico: the case for sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization in the Sabinas basin during the Laramide orogeny

The sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization in the San Marcos area of Coahuila, northeastern Mexico occurs predominantly at an Early Cretaceous redox boundary between footwall siliciclastic red beds of the San Marcos Formation and hanging-wall carbonate strata of the Cupido Formation in the Sabinas basin. The hypogene mineralization is mainly present as chalcocite-group minerals, with additional bornite and chalcopyrite, and everywhere occurs in both disseminated and vein/veinlet forms. Supergene copper-bearing oxides (malachite, chalcanthite, azurite, chrysocolla) are, however, the dominant surface expression of the mineralization. Additional sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization also occurs, albeit erratically, in lower strata of the Sabinas basin as well as in veins in basement granitoids, thus spanning ~3000 m of basin stratigraphy. Where best developed, the stratiform mineralization displays intense structural control proximal to the regional San Marcos fault system. This major bounding fault, regional in nature and with numerous periods of activity, controlled the evolution of the Sabinas basin. Structural controls on mineralization include stacked, shallow-angle, bedding-parallel, northeast-vergent thrust faults and associated drag folds, in addition to numerous, steeply-dipping, northeast-trending copper-bearing veins and veinlets. The mineralized veins and veinlets, and the bedding-parallel thrusts display mutually crosscutting relationships. These elements are all consistent and in harmony with a regional northeast-trending direction of horizontal shortening accompanying reverse motion of the San Marcos fault system. Inversion along the San Marcos fault system, and the entire Sabinas basin in the Paleogene from ~60 to 40 Ma, resulted from wholesale contractional deformation during the Laramide (Mexican) orogeny. Hence, emplacement of the sediment-hosted stratiform copper–silver mineralization at San Marcos, and elsewhere in the larger Coahuila region, is interpreted as a natural corollary of large-scale, metal-bearing fluid expulsion, migration, and precipitation resulting from orogenic shortening, lithostatic loading, and squeezing of the Sabinas basin during Mexican orogen construction. Although sedimentation of the host strata in the Sabinas basin took place in a pericratonic setting associated with the opening of the Gulf of Mexico, sediment-hosted stratiform copper-silver mineralization occurred during orogenic uplift and conversion of the original basin into an orogen-foreland pair, with similarities to some of the world´s largest sediment-hosted stratiform copper provinces.

PETROGENETIC MODELING OF THE GRANITIC ROCKS IN AND AROUND LODHMA, DIST RANCHI, JHARKHAND, INDIA

The Lodhma area, in the Ranchi district, constitutes the central segment of Chotanagpur Granite Gneissic Complex ( CGGC) and falls in the northeastern segment of Survey of India toposheet number 73E/4. The CGGC is mainly composed of variants of granitic rocks, amphibolites and metasedimentaries. The granitic rocks find good exposure in the area. They comprise predominantly of granite gneisses, crystalline massive granites and migmatites showing noticeable variations in mineralogy, texture, structure and associations. The regional strike of the lithounits of the area show almost E-W trend. However ambient structural controls have brought about local changes in the strike direction. The area has witnessed at least three phases of deformations which is reflected by three generations of folds, which are generally isoclinals. Petrogenetic characterization of granitic rocks and its variants in the area has been attempted using various geochemical tools involving major/ trace element studies and Niggli values. S –type parentage of these Granites have been established on the basis of distribution behavior of various chemical components present in it, thereby indicating role of pelitic schists in the generation of anatectic melt, which ultimately crystallized into granites. S-type lineage of these granites has also been further cemented with the help of several well established binary and ternary variation diagrams