A Special Issue Devoted to Continental Margin Massive Sulfide Deposits and Their Geodynamic Environments

Abstract

The papers in this issue arise from a special session held at the May, 2003 Geological Association of Canada (GAC)-Mineralogical Association of Canada (MAC)-Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, entitled “Massive Sulfides on the Edge: The Formation of VMS and SEDEX Deposits Within Evolving Continental Margins.” Continental margin environments (e.g., continental arcs, arc rifts, and back-arc basins) host some of the world’s largest volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) and sedimentary-exhalative (SEDEX) deposits (e.g., Bathurst, Iberian Pyrite Belt), yet there remains an incomplete understanding of the regional- to local-scale controls on their setting and genesis. The purpose of this issue is to explore and better understand the setting, styles, and continent- to deposit-scale controls on the localization of these deposits within and along continental margins. The papers here build on recent multidisciplinary projects such as those on the Bathurst camp (Goodfellow et al., 2003), on Australian VMS environments (Large et al., 2001), and the ongoing International Geological Correlation Program (IGCP) Project 502 on “Global Comparison of Volcanic-Hosted Massive Sulfide Districts: The controls on the distribution and timing of VMS deposits” (Allen et al., 2002). The results presented here contribute new data and observations from both well-known camps (e.g., Iberian Pyrite Belt) and new camps and deposits for which little published information is available (e.g., Finlayson Lake in the Yukon-Tanana terrane, Greens Creek in the Alexander terrane, Baiyinchang in Gansu Province, China, La Plata in western Ecuador, and Cuale in the Gurrerro terrane, Mexico). The papers in the volume range from those that are regional in scope (e.g., Bissig et al., 2008; Mortensen et al., 2008; Taylor et al., 2008), to new deposit descriptions (e.g., Bradshaw et al., 2008; Chiaradia et al., 2008), to new information on known deposits (e.g., Barrett et al., 2008; …