Alteration Geochemistry of Volcanic Rocks around Sarcheshmeh Porphyry Copper Deposit, Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran: Implications for Regional Exploration

Abstract

AbstractTo discriminate the mineral potentiality of the trachybasalt around the Miocene Sarcheshmeh porphyry copper deposit, petrogeochemical characteristics of more than 45 samples of the volcanic rocks were studied. Sarcheshmeh is one of the world's largest Miocene porphyry copper deposits in a continental arc setting and contains about 1200 million tonnes of ores with an average grade of 1.2 percent copper, 0.03 percent molybdenum, 3.9 g/t Ag and 0.11 g/t Au. The biotized and sericitized trachybasalts around the Sarcheshmeh deposit are associated with chalcopyrite, pyrite and molybdenite and and are enriched in Cu (>3108 ppm), K2O (>4.2%), Rb (>155 ppm) and MgO (>2.9%), but depleted in yttrium (<11 ppm), MnO (<0.06%), CaO (<0.6%), Na2O (<0.33%), Sr (<107 ppm), and Ba (<181 ppm). The propylitized trachybasalts are enriched in CaO (>9.1%), Na2O (>3.2%), MnO (>0.24%), Y (>18.2 ppm), and Ba (>323 ppm). The results demonstrate that the diagrams of loss on ignition − Cu, Cu − Y, K2O/K2O + Na2O + CaO − Cu and Y − MnO may be used as an exploration guide for undiscovered porphyry copper mineralization in the Central Iranian volcano—plutonic copper belt.