The Glyde Sub‐basin: A volcaniclastic‐bearing pull‐apart basin coeval with the McArthur River base‐metal deposit, Northern Territory

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Abstract
Sedimentological, geochemical and tectonic studies have been carried out on the Glyde Sub‐basin, a fault‐bounded depocentre adjacent to the margin of the Batten Trough, 80 km south of the HYC Pb‐Zn‐Ag ore deposit, in the mid‐Proterozoic McArthur Basin. Although it is unmineralized, the basin is, in some aspects, morphologically similar to the HYC Sub‐basin and provides an insight into processes which occurred coevally along strike from a giant shale‐hosted base‐metal deposit. The geometry of the sub‐basin supports an origin in a releasing bend of the Emu Fault during oblique right‐lateral extension of the Emu Fault Zone, resulting in the deposition of a very thick sequence of below wave‐base Barney Creek Formation carbonaceous siltstone. Prior to sub‐basin development the area was covered by hypersaline carbonate tidal flats of the Coxco Dolomite Member of the Teena Dolomite. Internal syn‐sedimentary normal faulting fractured the sub‐basin into seven major blocks, establishing a basic geometry of northern and southern depressions, into which the W‐Fold and HYC Pyritic Shale Members were successively deposited, separated by a non‐depositional horst. During the subsequent deposition of undivided Barney Creek Formation the horst was submerged and greater water circulation was established. The horst continued to be an east‐west barrier to clastic and volcaniclastic gravity flows, evidenced by the confinement to the northern depocentre of prograding easterly‐derived carbonate‐dominated turbidites. Rhyolitic volcanism in the Glyde Sub‐basin commenced in the W‐Fold Shale Member, and became common in the overlying Barney Creek Formation. The measurable volcanic component increases from 4.4 to 17.5% of the total sediment package southwards over 18 km, implying a southern rhyolitic source within 6–30 km. A geochemical comparison of these relatively unaltered tuffs with those intercalated in the HYC ore sequence identified a comagmatic relationship on the basis of immobile element contents, supporting a common volcanic source. This conclusion was only possible after a preliminary study found Ti, Zr, Y and Nb to be relatively immobile in the severely potassium‐altered tuff of the HYC hydrothermal ore environment. Low‐grade (as distinct from high temperature hydrothermal) potassium‐alteration of felsic tuff throughout the McArthur Basin may have resulted from diagenetic interaction with very evolved lacustrine saline brines, whereas brines in the diagenetic environment of the Glyde Sub‐basin, in which unaltered or sodically‐altered tuff predominates, were comparatively less evolved.