Sediment-hosted gold mineralisation in the Ratatotok district, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

The Ratatotok district in the Minahasa Regency of North Sulawesi, Indonesia is an area of significant gold mineralisation. Gold has been mined in the district since at least the 1850s, and intensively by the Dutch between 1900 and 1921 with a recorded production of 5,060 kg of gold. Newmont began exploring the district in 1986, and has delineated a major sediment-hosted replacement-style deposit at Mesel, and other smaller deposits in an 8×5 km area. A total drill-indicated resource of over 60 metric tonnes of gold (+2 Moz) is reported for Mesel, and three of the smaller deposits. Approximately 80% of this resource is refractory. Silver grades are usually low (<10 g/t). The Mesel deposit is similar to many Carlin-type deposits in carbonate hostrocks, alteration, geochemical signature and ore mineralogy, but is distinct in tectonic setting. The discovery of replacement-style mineralisation at Mesel, in an impure limestone within a Tertiary island arc environment, demonstrates that deposits with outward characteristics similar to Carlin-type mineralisation are not restricted to a continental setting. Carbonate sediments in the Ratatotok district were deposited in a Late Miocene restricted basin. Later compressional tectonics caused uplift that resulted in karst development in the limestone and erosion of the adjacent volcanic arc with deposition of a thick epiclastic unit. This was followed by intrusion of shallow level pre-mineral andesite into the sequence. Mineralisation at Mesel, and probably elsewhere in the district, is synchronous with the late-stage reactivation of strike-slip faults. Mineralising fluids at Mesel were focussed along steep structures sympathetic to these faults, and trapped below a relatively impermeable andesite cap rock. Hydrothermal fluids caused decalcification of the silty, more permeable carbonate units with the formation of secondary dolomite, deposition of fine arsenian pyrite, silica veinlets and gold. Volume loss due to decalcification and dolomite formation caused collapse brecciation which enhanced fluid flow and further mineralisation. This locally culminated in total decarbonation and deposition of massive silica. Late-stage stibnite occurs in structural zones within the ore deposit, whereas arsenic (as realgar and orpiment) and mercury (as cinnabar) are concentrated on the periphery. Elsewhere in the Ratatotok district, gold mineralisation is restricted to replacement-style mineralisation in permeable zones along limestone-andesite contacts, open-space filling quartz-calcite veins and stockworks, and residual quartz-clay breccias. The residual breccias are developed in-situ, and are interpreted to form by dissolution of the wallrock limestone from around pre-existing mineralisation. This has resulted in widespread eluvial gold occurrences.