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| Author(s): |
José Carlos Sícoli Seoane
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Geociências |
| Defense date: | 1999-00-00 |
| Examining board members: |
Ardemirio de Barros Silva;
Alfonso Schrank;
Ginaldo Ademar da Cruz Campanha;
Paulo Cesar Soares
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| Advisor: | Ardemirio de Barros Silva |
| Abstract | |
Castro is an extensional, Eocambrian to Eordovician Iate to post-Brasiliano foreland basin. Plug and dyke bodies of andesite cut pelitic and rudaceous sequences of well-bedded red to green siltstone and sandstone, with subordinate ignimbrite. A dome complex of massive to highly flow-banded rhyolite from several pulses, tuff and epiclastics, fill the ba5in nearby the town of the same name, in central-eastern state of Paraná. The basin is host to low sulphidation epithermal gold mineralization, the first of its type and age to be reported in Brazil. Gold is found in both intermediate and felsic volcanic rocks. Sediments are virtually barren, but rhyolite / sediment contacts are known sites of silicification and mineralization. Carbon replacement is a common vein texture and cinnabar and arsenopyrite occur in small quantities. Chalcedony, calcite, iIIite and barite are typical gangue minerals. Also present are hematite, limonite and goethite, usually in fractures and/or cavities, fluorite, sericite and epidote. Stibnite, zeolite, and gamet occur locally and in small quantities. The integration, validation and analysis at different scales of the great diversity of data suitable for the exploration of commodities associated with epithermal systems, are met by the implementation of a Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Data used in deposit modeling includes multielementary geochemistry in various media and regional and detail geological mapping. Multielementary geochemistry of 750 stream sediment samples in two sieve fractions (above and below 80#), plus color count for gold in pan concentrates collected nearby the stream sediment stations, were captured from lab result spreadsheets and associated by their corresponding sample number to sample site location obtained from GPS. Topo sheets in 1 :50.000 scale were digitized in CAD to provide a base map and edited in the GIS to become seamless; catchment basins were delimited and each basin was assigned its corresponding sample. Geology maps and photo interpretation of structures were al50 digitized, georeferenced and edited for consistency in the GIS. Modeling by GIS, using both knowledge driven and data driven pathfinder associations for multielementary geochemestry, lead to selection of four clusters of eleven catchment basins, which are related to structures or lithological boundaries, to be investigated for surfacing and non-surfacing ore bodies. Weighting gold values based on sinuosity of the streams, to filter out the effects of physical dispersion and accumulation of gold, results in a modified anomaly map which more closely represents the original chemical distribution of gold in rocks, and thus anomalies related to mineralization (AU) | |