112 Hydrothermal ore deposits I: magmatic and orogenic environments

The ore bodies have various approximately radially symmetric or elliptical shapes,
which are often known as shells. Ore grade generally increases progressively and grad-
ually from the peripheries to the centres of the bodies. The most common shape is
probably the cap and underlying cylindrical shell, or inverted cone, with a barren core,
as shown in Figure 3.11d. In a few cases, there are multiple nested and overlapping shells
(Figure 3.11c) that formed within a short time period. Other ore bodies have most ore in a
cylindrical shell and lack the cap (Figure 3.11a), and some are vertically orientated cigar-
shaped bodies centred on narrow pipe-like intrusions (Figure 3.11b). Where Cu and Au
occur together in the same ore body, the highest grades of Au and Cu are closely
coincident. However, where Mo occurs with Cu and Au, it is in many cases differently
distributed with concentrations either in a deeper-level shell below the Cu–Au ore body,
and hence closer to the source pluton (Figure 3.11d), or in an annular concentration
around the Cu–Au ore body (such as at Bajo de la Alumbrera, Argentina).

Ore minerals
Ore minerals are in all cases disseminated as millimetre- to sub-millimetre-sized grains
in altered rock and in veinlets throughout the porphyry deposits. Maximum modal
abundances of ore minerals are about 10%. The most important copper minerals are
chalcopyrite and bornite, and more rarely chalcocite. Where bornite and chalcopyrite
are both present, the ore body is zoned with the greatest abundance of bornite at greater
depths. Gold is present as small inclusions of native gold with chalcopyrite or bornite
and in solid solution in bornite. Molybdenite is the only primary molybdenum ore
mineral. A few per cent by mode of pyrite is ubiquitous in the ore shell and also above
and around the ore shell over distances of up to a few kilometres. It is generally absent
form the barren core of a shell and below the ore body, where magnetite is present
instead.

Veins and structures of hydrothermal fluid flow

Most ore and surrounding hydrothermally altered rock has a dense stockwork or sheeting
of multiple generations of filled fractures, veinlets and centimetre-wide veins. Veins
wider than a few centimetres are rare in porphyry deposits. In the most densely veined
stockworks up to between 10 and 20% of the rock volume may be formed of veins. Veins
are developed throughout the ore and immediately surrounding hydrothermally altered
rock, although the cores of many ore shells have much lower densities of veins.
There are multiple generations of cross-cutting veins in the deposits. The mineralogies
of the different generations of veins and their temporal evolution have been determined
for a number of major deposits. Although the sequences and mineralogies of veins are
different in detail, a consistent sequence of three generic types can be recognised in the
ore zones at many deposits. The sequence at many porphyry Cu deposits is for instance:
(i) early veinlets (e.g. EB-type ¼ early biotite), which are thin and often wispy, with
biotite together with, in some cases, magnetite lining the veins; (ii) the major phase of
quartz-dominated veins and veinlets, often granular in texture, which contain dissemin-
ated chalcopyrite (A- and B-type veins); and (iii) a late widespread phase of D-type
veins – quartz–pyrite ± chalcopyrite veins with sericite haloes, or chlorite–pyrite with
chlorite haloes. Ore grade correlates with the density and abundance of A and B quartz-
dominated veins.

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113 3.2 Hydrothermal deposits formed around magmatic centres

.10
.18

.18

Dyke .10
Dyke
Intrusion breccia Quartz monzonite
San Juan pluton
Copper ore body
Andesite 1 km 2 km
Mineralised fracture vein Mineralised fracture veins
San Juan Sierrita-Esperanza
Vein density (cm–1)
Fault vein

Figure 3.12 Distribution and orientations of major veins and fractures of the stockwork set
that is related to ore at two porphyry deposits in Arizona, USA. The San Juan deposit is a
prospect with the centre of the ore zone below the present level of outcrop. The pattern
includes radial and concentric veins and a superimposed set with west-southwest–east-
northeast strike. The Sierrita–Esperanza bodies are interpreted to be eroded to deeper levels
and the vein orientations are interpreted to be related to regional tectonic stress. The
orientations of dykes and elongation directions of sections of the ore bodies are approximately
parallel to one or other of the vein orientations. Note that the veins are developed over a
much wider area than the deposit but become less intense with greater distance from the
magmatic centre. Modified after Heidrick and Titley (1982) and Titley (1993).

Veins form stockworks or are sheeted and are most commonly moderately to steeply
dipping. Stockworks of any one type and phase of veins and veinlets are generally formed
in a single phase with veins of different orientations formed essentially simultaneously
such that there is no truncation of those of one orientation by those of another. Although
stockworks may appear in outcrop to be composed of randomly oriented veins, structural
measurements show systematic patterns of orientations, most commonly with either
bimodal or girdle distributions. In some cases there are systematic variations in orienta-
tion across ore bodies (Figure 3.12).
A distinct and locally developed texture in the pluton cupolas below porphyry
deposits and also in stock-like intrusions is ‘brain rock’ or ‘unidirectional solidification
texture’ (UST). This has cuspate, bulbous, repeated irregular bands of generally coarse-
grained to pegmatitic granite minerals with euhedral terminations where grains grew
downwards into melt or fluid. These textures are interpreted to record mineral growth into
pockets of hydrothermal fluid that had collected at the top of a crystallising body of
magma.
Breccia pipes are present in some porphyry deposit. They may comprise part of the ore
and include the same hydrothermally precipitated matrix minerals as in veins. Other
breccia pipes are unmineralised: a large pipe at the El Teniente deposit (Chile) cut

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114 Hydrothermal ore deposits I: magmatic and orogenic environments

Argillic/advanced argillic

Phyllic

Chlorite-
sericite

Propylitic

Potassic

1 km
Multi-
phase
stock

Sodic-calcic

Pluton

Figure 3.13 Schematic cross section through a porphyry deposit showing an idealised
distribution of different alteration facies.

through the centre of the ore body after mineralisation. The breccia pipes are characteris-
tically sub-vertical. Upward-flaring shapes of some pipes suggest that they formed in a
similar fashion as diatremes in kimberlites, during venting of magmas or fluids to the
surface. Others are collapse breccias which did not extend to the surface and in which
clasts have fallen into void space in a similar fashion as roof clasts fill karst caves. Void
space in a magmatic system may have developed on emptying of a magma or fluid-filled
space at depth.

Hydrothermal alteration
Hydrothermal altered rock is a characteristic component of porphyry deposits. It
is pervasive in the ore zones and in adjacent, overlying and underlying rock, in some
cases extending kilometres beyond the limits of the ore body. There are multiple
characteristic alteration mineral assemblages in both the intrusions and the surround-
ing country rock that formed at different temperatures and as the results of migration
of different fluids. The assemblages and their patterns of distribution are different
in detail at different deposits, but systematic and repeated patterns are recognised
(Figure 3.13).
Up to six alteration types (alteration facies) are distinguished based on the presence of
one or, in most cases, combinations of specific and characteristic minerals, and are
repeatedly mapped in and around porphyry deposits within alteration zones in which
one facies is dominant. The zones are each developed broadly concentrically around and
above the porphyry intrusion and ore body. In many deposits, lower-temperature alter-
ation assemblages partially overprint higher-temperature assemblages.

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