Re–Os dating of pyrite and mineral chemistry of magnetite from the Yamansu Fe deposit, Xinjiang, northwestern China

Abstract

The Yamansu iron deposit, hosted in submarine volcanic rocks, is located in the Aqishan–Yamansu Fe–Cu metallogenic belt of eastern Tianshan, Xinjiang. New pyrite Re–Os and pyroxene diorite intrusion ages and the chemistry of magnetite constrain the origin of the deposit. The Yamansu orebodies display banded or lenticular forms and sharp contacts with marble and garnet skarn. Pyrite associated with magnetite from hydrothermal massive ores has a Re–Os isochron age of 320.3 ± 9.1 Ma, which is consistent with the Carboniferous age of volcanic rocks. However, the pyroxene diorite age (252.1 ± 3.7 Ma) is obviously younger than the mineralization age, implying no temporal relationship between mineralization and intrusion. Magnetite samples from different ores in the Yamansu deposit are suggested to have a magmatic–hydrothermal origin. The magmatic primary magnetite is rich in TiO2 and poor in SiO2, MgO, and CaO, similar to magnetite from Kiruna type deposits. The hydrothermal magnetite is rich in FeO, CaO, and SiO2 but poor in TiO2 and shows oscillatory zoning. Moreover, magmatic and hydrothermal magnetite samples show different characteristic normalized rare earth element and trace element patterns. A combination of ore fabrics, discrimination diagrams, and normalized patterns for magnetite samples can reflect the magmatic–hydrothermal process. The Yamansu iron deposit is spatially and temporally associated with Carboniferous volcanism, and we propose that the magmatic magnetite ores were derived from iron-rich melt through melt immiscibility. The residual iron-rich magma ascended and erupted along with hydrothermal activity; then moderate to large amounts of hydrothermal massive, banded, or disseminated magnetite formed with skarns.