Flexural-slip generated bedding-parallel veins from central Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Thin continuous laminated bedding-parallel quartz veins (BPVs) with slip-striated and fibred vein walls occur within slates, or at their contact with sandstones, on the limbs of chevron folds in the Bendigo-Castlemaine goldfields, southeastern Australia. Two microstructural Types of BPV (I and II) have been previously recognized, and are confirmed in this study. Both types are concluded to have formed during and/or after crenulation cleavage (the first tectonic axial planar structure) in the wallrock slates, and during flexural-slip folding. Type I BPVs consist of syntaxial phyllosilicate inclusion trails, parallel to bedding, enclosing inclined inclusion bands, the latter formed by detachment of wallrock phyllosilicate particles from the walls of pressure solution-segmented discordant tension veins. Type I BPVs are formed by bedding-parallel shear, and grow in width by propagation of the discordant veins into the BPV walls. Type II veins are composed of quartz bands separated by wallrock slate seams which have split away from the vein wall during dilatant shear opening. They incorporate numerous torn-apart fragments of crenulated wallrock slate. Type I BPV inclusion band average spacing of 0.5 mm probably represents the magnitude of slip increments during stick-slip flexural-slip folding activity.