Mineralogy and geochemistry of an Archean tuffaceous exhalite: the Main Contact Tuff, Millenbach mine area, Noranda, Quebec
The Main Contact Tuff, in the vicinity of Millenbach mine, Noranda, Quebec, is an extensive, although discontinuous, ore-related volcanic exhalative metalliferous sediment, or "tuffaceous exhalite," of Archean age. It was formed by the variable contribution of two constituents: (1) exhalite (chemical) composed mainly of pyrite, quartz, sphalerite, pyrrhotite, and chalcopyrite and (2) tuff (clastic) composed of quartz, chlorite, and sericite.Tuffaceous exhalites such as the Main Contact Tuff and the similar tetsusekiei of the Japanese Kuroko deposits (Miocene age) indicate a fossil hydrothermal system that may or may not have produced economic concentrations of metallic sulfides. The Main Contact Tuff displays cryptic variations, which provide exploration guides at different scales: (1) the Fe/[Fe + Mg] ratios of chlorite decrease from 0.63 to 0.32 over a distance of 0.3 km approaching ore from the north, and from 0.72 to 0.32 over 1.5 km from the south; (2) the FeO/[FeO + MgO] (sulfide-free) ratios of who...