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Mesoarchaean Gold Mineralisation in the Barberton Greenstone Belt: A Review

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The Archaean Geology of the Kaapvaal Craton, Southern Africa

Part of the book series: Regional Geology Reviews ((RGR))

Abstract

The Barberton Greenstone Belt hosts abundant structurally controlled gold mineralisation of Mesoarchaean age. More than 300 gold occurrences have been reported, although most of the gold production so far (>350 tonnes Au) has come from a handful of deposits located along the northern margin of the greenstone belt. Most deposits are hosted by greenschist-facies metasedimentary and metamafic rocks, with the notable exception of the amphibolite-facies rocks at New Consort mine. Mineralisation is associated with quartz–carbonate veins that truncate major compressional structures at the greenstone belt scale. The age of mineralisation is loosely constrained at circa 3080–3030 Ma, based on U–Pb dating of hydrothermal rutile and titanite. In greenschist-facies deposits, the ore assemblage is dominated by pyrite and arsenopyrite, which contain up to thousands of ppm of ‘invisible’ gold, Ni–As–Sb sulphides and native gold. At New Consort mine, mineralisation includes massive replacement-style ore and vein-hosted or disseminated types. Both structural studies in the field and microstructural observation point to a multistage ore deposition process, which is reflected in the re-activation of brittle to ductile structures and the overprinting of sulphide assemblages. The presence of mass-independently fractionated S isotopes (Δ33S = –0.6 to +1.0‰) in pyrite from Sheba and Fairview mines suggests that hydrothermal fluids mobilised S from volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the greenstone belt and places constraints on the origin of the Au itself.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Zwartkoppie Formation is not recognised by SACS and its use is informal.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by SIEF (Science and Industry Endowment Fund), the NRF (National Research Foundation of South Africa), and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Integrated Mineral and Energy Resource Analysis (CIMERA). JMC thanks the CNRS-INSU Programme National de Planétologie for their support. We acknowledge Chris Rippon (Barberton Mines (Pty) Limited) for providing sample material.

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  1. Johanna Marin-Carbonne

    Present address: Faculté des géosciences et de l’environnement, Institut des sciences de la Terre, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Andrea Agangi & Axel Hofmann

  2. Isotopengeochemie, Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Benjamin Eickmann

  3. Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans, UCA, IRD, CNRS, Université Lyon—UJM, Saint Étienne, France

    Johanna Marin-Carbonne

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  1. Institut für Geowissenschaften, University of Mainz, Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Alfred Kröner

  2. Department of Geology, University of Johannesburg , Auckland Park, South Africa

    Axel Hofmann

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Agangi, A., Hofmann, A., Eickmann, B., Marin-Carbonne, J. (2019). Mesoarchaean Gold Mineralisation in the Barberton Greenstone Belt: A Review. In: Kröner, A., Hofmann, A. (eds) The Archaean Geology of the Kaapvaal Craton, Southern Africa. Regional Geology Reviews. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78652-0_7

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