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PorterGeo Database - Ore Deposit Description
PorterGeo Database - Ore Deposit Description
The Captain's Flat host sequence is confined to a well defined north-south trending graben some 2 to 8 km wide,
bounded by horsts of contorted Ordovician metasediments and Siluro-Devonian granitoid batholiths. The hosts
comprise tightly folded Middle to Upper Silurian felsic pyroclastics, volcanogenic sediments and shales in the
following succession, from the base: i). Copper Creek Shale - 60 to 150 m of sediments with subordinate tuffs.
ii). Kohinoor Volcanics - 50 to 850 m of coarsely porphyritic andesitic to dacitic to rhyolitic lavas, tuffs, volcanic
breccias, tuffaceous shales and volcanic cherts. This unit hosts the orebodies. iii). Captains Flat Formation - 850
to 1200 m of predominantly shales and siltstones with lesser volcanic flows and tuffs.
Our Global Perspective
Ore is present in three overturned shoots which dip at 80 to 87° W and plunge north at 60 to 70°, known as Elliots, Series books include:
Central and Keatings. The ore ranges from <1 to 20 m in thickness. The interconnected Elliots and Central
shoots had a combined strike length at surface of 500 m while Keatings 250 m to the north was 300 m long. Ore
was continuous down dip/plunge for 800 to 1000 m. The rhyolitic crystal tuff (to quartz schist) that forms the
immediate footwall is a zone 80 to 100 m thick, which also defines the pyritic halo to the orebody. This envelope
of pyrite continues for 500 m north of Elliots and for 1200 m south of Keatings.
The ore at Captains Flat is composed of the following, in order of decreasing abundance: pyrite, sphalerite,
galena, chalcopyrite, tennantite (tetrahedrite), arsenopyrite, gold, rare pyrrhotite and very rare stannite. The
gangue is of quartz, chert, occassional carbonates, chlorite and sericite. The orebody has a sharply defined
geologic hangingwall and diffuse footwall, grading into stringer mineralisation. The highest grades of Zn & Pb are
in the eastern (geological hangingwall) side of the orebody, while copper in excess of 0.5% is only in the western Super Porphyry Cu and Au
(geological footwall) side. The ore varies from an upper layer of massive, banded sphalerite-galena in the
geological hangingwall, stratigraphically downwards to banded pyrite-sphalerite, then to massive to semi-massive
pyrite with occassional chalcopyrite and rare sphalerite, which in turn merges down into a zone up to 90 m thick of
stringer and disseminated pyrite and rare chalcopyrite at the top.
Total production from 1882 to 1962 when the mine closed was:
4 Mt @ 0.67% Cu, 6% Pb, 10% Zn, 56 g/t Ag, 1.7 g/t Au.
The mine and dumps, which are in the catchment of the river that flows through Canberra, have been completely
rehabilitated.
IOCG Deposits - 70 papers
For more detail consult the reference(s) listed below.
All available as eBOOKS
The most recent source geological information used to prepare this summary was dated: 1975. Remaining HARD COPIES on
This description is a summary from published sources, the chief of which are listed below.
sale. No hard copy book more
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