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Formation of Archean batholith-hosted gold veins at the Lac Herbin deposit, Val-d’Or district, Canada: Mineralogical and fluid inclusion constraints

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Abstract

The Lac Herbin deposit consists of a network of mineralized, parallel steep-reverse faults within the synvolcanic Bourlamaque granodiorite batholith at Val-d’Or in the Archean Abitibi greenstone belt. There are two related quartz-tourmaline-carbonate fault-fill vein sets in the faults, which consist of subvertical fault-fill veins associated with subhorizontal veins. The paragenetic sequence is characterized by a main vein filling ore stage including quartz, tourmaline, carbonate, and pyrite-hosted gold, chalcopyrite, tellurides, pyrrhotite, and cubanite inclusions. Most of the gold is located in fractures in deformed pyrite and quartz in equilibrium with chalcopyrite and carbonates, with local pyrrhotite, sphalerite, galena, cobaltite, pyrite, or tellurides. Petrography and microthermometry on quartz from the main vein filling ore stage reveal the presence of three unrelated fluid inclusion types: (1) gold-bearing aqueous-carbonic inclusions arranged in three-dimensional intragranular clusters in quartz crystals responsible for the main vein filling stage, (2) barren high-temperature, aqueous, moderately saline inclusions observed in healed fractures, postdating the aqueous-carbonic inclusions, and considered as a remobilizing agent of earlier precipitated gold in late fractures, and (3) barren low-temperature, aqueous, high saline inclusions in healed fractures, similar to the crustal brines reported throughout the Canadian Shield and considered to be unrelated to the gold mineralization. At the Lac Herbin deposit, the aqueous-carbonic inclusions are interpreted to have formed first and to represent the gold-bearing fluid, which were generated contemporaneous with regional greenschist facies metamorphism. In contrast, the high-temperature aqueous fluid dissolved gold from the main vein filling ore stage transported and reprecipitated it in late fractures during a subsequent local thermal event.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Discovery Grant to Georges Beaudoin from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Bourse Lombard and the société académique des sciences naturelles of Switzerland delivered research grants to Hervé Rezeau. The authors are grateful to QMX Gold Corp. staff, Claude Gobeil and Jérémie Lemarchand, for kindly hosting and guiding at the mine. Kalin Kouzmanov (University of Geneva) conducted Electron Probe Microanalyses and Jean-Marie Boccard (University of Geneva) made the preparation of polished and doubly polished sections. Constructive comments by journal editor B. Lehmann and thoughtful reviews by Steffen Hagemann and Wei Jian significantly improved the content and the clarity of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva, rue des Maraîchers 13, CH-1205, Geneva, Switzerland

    Hervé Rezeau & Robert Moritz

  2. Département de Géologie et de Génie Géologique, Université Laval, avenue de la Médecine 1065, Québec, QC, Canada, G1V 0A6

    Georges Beaudoin

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  1. Hervé Rezeau
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  2. Robert Moritz
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  3. Georges Beaudoin
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Correspondence to Hervé Rezeau.

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Editorial handling: S. Hagemann

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Table S1: Representative electron microprobe analysis of pyrite and cobaltite crystals. Table S2: Core to rim electron microprobe profile in a concentric zoned pyrite crystal. Table S3: Representative electron microprobe analyses of individual points in gold and their respective Au:Ag ratio. Table S4: Representative electron microprobe analysis of bismuth tellurides and nickel sulfide minerals. Table S5: Fluid inclusion data for each fluid type. See text for explanations. (XLSX 74 kb)

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Rezeau, H., Moritz, R. & Beaudoin, G. Formation of Archean batholith-hosted gold veins at the Lac Herbin deposit, Val-d’Or district, Canada: Mineralogical and fluid inclusion constraints. Miner Deposita 52, 421–442 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00126-016-0669-5

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