Paleoredox conditions, hydrothermal history, and target vectoring in the MacMillan Pass base-metal district, Yukon, Canada: 1 – Lithogeochemistry of proximal and distal shales

Abstract

The MacMillan Pass District in Yukon, Canada, hosts the Tom and Jason clastic sediment-hosted Zn-Pb-Ag-(Ba) deposits. Bulk geochemical paleoredox proxies (Eu/Eu*, Ce/Ce*, Mo, Re/Mo, and Ni/Co) indicate anoxic–dysoxic water column and sulfidic porewater conditions persisted during the Late Devonian deposition of the Lower Earn Group host rocks. Positive Eu/Eu* anomalies (up to 3.31) in sulfide mineralization at the Tom deposit are consistent with relatively high temperature (probably >250 °C), reducing, acidic hydrothermal fluids that infiltrated laterally through unconsolidated sediments proximal to the hydrothermal upflow zone and/or exhaled at the seafloor as moderate- to high-density brines. Molybdenum and U enrichment factors (relative to upper continental crust) and Mo/organic C values are consistent with a moderately restricted basin; Mo/C values fall between those of the Black Sea (highly restricted) and the Framvaren Inlet (moderately restricted). A Ba-rich shale was identified in rocks that are distal and time-equivalent units to the Pb-Zn mineralization; based on the bulk chemical compositions and on previous S and Sr isotope studies, we interpret the baryte in this unit to be largely hydrothermal in origin and perhaps remobilized and reprecipitated during hydrothermal base-metal mineralization.