RELATION OF ORE DEPOSITION TO DOMING IN THE NORTH AMERICAN CORDILLERA

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Abstract
Many structural domes and anticlines rise from undeformed surroundings; the general crust of the earth is neither shortened nor extended by these local swells or blisters, but the area of the plate upfolded is increased. With plastic material the increase is effected largely by flow; with brittle material, largely by fracture. Many mining districts are associated with upfolds of this type. Districts here described fall into two categories: (1) those whose structural frame is a dome, and (2) those whose structural frame is an anticline. Domes may show fractures which radiate from the apex, or concentric fractures which are segments of circles, of varying diameters but with a common center, the apex of the dome. Both types may appear on the same dome; the fractures of each type aid enlargement of the plate during doming. Sunlight and Kirwin, Wyoming, are minor districts with dominant radial fracture patterns. Vein matter was deposited while the walls of the vein fractures were being pulled apart. With a radial vein system the only way in which all the vein walls could be simultaneously pulled apart is by stretching of the fabric of an expanding dome. The structural setting of the Ophir, Utah, lead-silver district, and of the Matehuala, Mexico, copper district is that of a half dome truncated by a normal fault with downthrow away from the domical apex. Displacement on the fault is greatest opposite the apex and decreases progressively in both directions, becoming zero at the spring line. No part of the dome ever existed on the down-thrown side of the fault, which was a fracture before doming. Maximum uplift was centered on one side of the fault and there produced the half dome; but the pre-existing fracture offered locally an easier mode of uplift by rise of the foot-wall block. At Ophir ore shoots followed intersections on the half dome of radial fractures with limestone beds. At Matehuala stretching during doming was effected largely by flow of limestone, but a monzonite stock intruded in the half dome was too brittle to flow. The limestone pulled away from the unyielding stock; fractures concentrated around the periphery of the stock localized the Dolores copper ore bodies. In the Silverton-Telluride district, Colorado, fractures radiate from a relatively large, roughly circular graben, along whose margin monzonitic stocks were intruded. Evidence suggests that this fracture pattern resulted from domical uplift, with the graben at the apex. Transfer of volcanic material from depth to the surface in the central area produced a sag which has eliminated the upward bulge of the dome. Mineralization advanced outward from the graben step by step with the outward growth of the radial fractures. Copper-silver pipes within the fault zone bounding the graben were formed first, followed successively outward by base-metal deposits as veins, which were reopened to admit gold and silver, and by precious-metal vein deposits in the outermost zone. The structural setting of La Plata, Colorado, is that of a dome, truncated, south of its apex, by a zone of high-angle faults striking eastward. Displacements on the faults are greatest opposite the domical apex. The doming is accentuated by a horseshoe-shaped hinge fold, open on the south. Along the fold dips of the strata steepen sharply; outside it, dips are gentle, whereas inside it, they are nearly flat. Several stocks were intruded along the fold, and others inside it. The steep flexural fold and abundant intrusions suggest upward shove of a flat-topped piston, perhaps a magma column congealed in its upper part, but fluid and under pressure below. Fractures are abundant along the horseshoe fold, and, with respect to the dome, fall into two classes, radial and concentric. Gold-silver deposits were concentrated chiefly within or near the horseshoe fold, and in the eastward-trending fault zone. Doming, which began during the intrusive epoch, persisted through the period of metallization, because at that time older fractures were reopened, new radial and concentric fractures were created, and fractures of both generations became loci for ore bodies. The structure at Rico, Colorado, is that of a dome with eastern elongation. Superimposed upon the major dome, toward its eastern end, is a doubly plunging anticline, also with easterly trend, cut by fractures which parallel its axis, and by fractures normal to the axis. Rich ore bodies were localized at a stratigraphic horizon originally occupied by a bed of gypsum which was dissolved, leaving silty material which the ores replaced. Ribbon-shaped mantos lay directly above fractures, both of the longitudinal and transverse sets. Ore solutions ascended these fractures to form the mantos during late stages of the doming. The Goldfield, Nevada, district lies on the southwest flank of a dome encircled by a belt of intense alteration, and of complex fracturing, which probably coalesces at depth into one or more persistent faults concentric with respect to the domical apex, and which formed the channel for altering and metallizing solutions. The volcanic rocks were brittle when first fractured by doming, but solutions rising along the fractures of the circular belt softened the rock by alunitization and kaolinization. Silica-bearing solutions then created the irregular silica “ledges” at horizons close to the then surface. The soft rock encasing the ledges flowed, as doming persisted, but the brittle ledges fractured. Ledges which had no “keel” below them were inaccessible to gold-bearing solutions; those with keels extending down to the main ore channel received the rich ore bodies. Many mining districts are associated with doubly plunging anticlines, which with brittle rock are broken by fractures which strike parallel or normal to the axis. At Creede, Colorado, older extrusive rocks were flexed into a north-trending anticline. Younger extrusive rocks do not share in the folding, but faults...

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