Geochronology of the Mines Gaspé porphyry deposit, Québec, Canada

Abstract

The Mines Gaspé area hosts multiple Cu–Mo skarn and porphyry orebodies near the town of Murdochville in the northeastern part of the Gaspé Peninsula, Québec. The orebodies occur within overlapping alteration aureoles in calcareous Lower Devonian sedimentary rocks. The strata are intruded by numerous multiphase porphyry sills, dykes, and plugs of Devonian age. The Porphyry Mountain intrusion and a sill in the Copper Mountain pit have been dated at 378.80 ± 0.37 and 377.60 ± 0.45 Ma, respectively, refining the results of previous studies, and demonstrating Porphyry Mountain intrusion emplacement at least 0.38 m.y. before Copper Mountain. Circa 392 Ma inherited zircon grains at Mines Gaspé suggest an early phase of magmatism that produced the extensive skarn alteration aureoles throughout the Gaspé Peninsula at sites such as Mines Gaspé and the nearby McGerrigle Complex, followed by significantly later (>10 m.y.) porphyritic intrusions and associated mineralization that added to existing skarn resources. Epidote at both Mines Gaspé and Sullipek occur as disseminated/granular crystals within the host groundmass and as larger crystals within veinlets or veinlet halos in metasomatised sedimentary rocks. Epidote ages suggest that there are several different propylitic hydrothermal events within the region at Mines Gaspé and Sullipek, which combined with new zircon U–Pb ages implies a prolonged and complex history of propylitic alteration within Gaspésie.