Age of the Zambian Copperbelt

Abstract

The sediment-hosted stratiform Cu ± Co deposits and prospects of the Central African Copperbelt are characterized by two intimately associated mineralization styles: disseminated sulfides and sulfide-bearing quartz-carbonate veins and veinlets. It has been widely accepted that the disseminated mineralization was introduced during sediment diagenesis in a rift setting, and possibly in multiple events spanning several hundred million years. In contrast, the veinlet-hosted mineralization is commonly thought to have been derived either by remobilization of the disseminated sulfides during the Lufilian collisional orogeny or introduced at broadly the same time(s) as the disseminated sulfides during diagenesis and subsequent orogeny. The results of 15 Re-Os molybdenite age determinations from Cu ± Co deposits and prospects across the Zambian part of the Central African Copperbelt suggest that both the disseminated and veinlet mineralization styles were indeed generated together, but in a 50-myr Cambrian window (~540–490 Ma) during the later stages of the Lufilian collisional orogeny. The molybdenite ages for the disseminated stratiform mineralization at two localities do not support the notion of syndiagenetic Cu introduction. The molybdenite ages also show that individual deposits formed over minimum time intervals of ~10–24 myr.