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Metallogenic Models and Exploration Criteria for Buried Carbonate-Hosted Ore Deposits: Results of a Multidisciplinary Study in Eastern England

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Mineral Deposits within the European Community

Part of the book series: Special Publication No. 6 of the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits ((MINERAL DEPOS.,volume 6))

Abstract

Exploration criteria for carbonate-hosted (Pennine and Irish-style) ore deposits buried beneath later cover have been developed based on new metallogenic models and methods of basin analysis usually applied to hydrocarbon exploration. New and existing data sets for eastern England were analysed and areas prospective for the two deposit types identified using an image analysis system.

Irish SEDEX (Zn-Ba-Pb) and Pennine (F-Pb-Ba-Zn) deposits can be related to different phases in the tectonic evolution of the Northern Foreland of the Hercynian orogen. Irish-style mineralisation formed over zones of high heat flow and tectonism in the waxing phase of a regime of crustal extension and the rise of hot asthenophere beneath the crust. The deposits are syngenetic/diagenetic in Tournaisian shelf carbonates. They were formed by the expulsion of hot, moderately saline fluids from half-graben basins, through basal sandstones, which reached the seafloor via listric faults.

In contrast, the epigenetic Pennine-style deposits were a product of tectonism following a period of declining geothermal gradients and crustal subsidence. The proposed model involves dewatering of Visean-Namurian shale basins, which were overpressured beneath later Carboniferous sediments, by seismic pumping related to Lower Permian (Hercynian) tectonism. Moderately acid, highly saline NaCl-CaCl2 brines carrying hydrocarbons, Pb, Zn, Ba and F were driven into fracture systems in Asbian-Brigantian platform limestones with mineral deposition due to acid neutralisation and sulphate reduction reactions during fluid mixing. In the Northern Pennines buried, high heat production granites locally focussed ore fluids into hydrothermal convection cells so that mineral zones are spatially related to the subcrop of the granites.

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Author notes

  1. J. A. Plant

    Present address: British Geological Survey, 64 Gray’s Inn Road, London, WC1X 8NG, UK

  2. K. Smith & N. J. P. Smith

    Present address: British Geological Survey, 19 Grange Terrace, Edinburgh, EH9 2LF, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. British Geological Survey, 154 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DU, England

    J. A. Plant

  2. British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, England

    D. G. Jones, T. B. Colman, J. D. Cornwell, K. Smith, N. J. P. Smith & A. S. D. Walker

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, England

    G. C. Brown & P. C. Webb

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Directorate-general for Science, Research and Development, Commission of the European Communities, Rue de la Loi 200, 1049, Brussels, Belgium

    Jean Boissonnas

  2. Istituto di Mineralogia e Petrologia, Corso Garibaldi 37, 35100, Padova, Italy

    Paolo Omenetto

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Plant, J.A. et al. (1988). Metallogenic Models and Exploration Criteria for Buried Carbonate-Hosted Ore Deposits: Results of a Multidisciplinary Study in Eastern England. In: Boissonnas, J., Omenetto, P. (eds) Mineral Deposits within the European Community. Special Publication No. 6 of the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits, vol 6. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-51858-4_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-51858-4_18

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-51858-4

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