Chapter 6-5
The Khandiza Zn-Pb-Cu-Ag VMS deposit: Part of a new
‘Bathurst District’ in southern Uzbekistan?
R.J. Herrington
Centre for Russian and Central Asian Mineral Studies, Department of Mineralogy, Natural History Museum, London, SW7
5BD, U.K.
N.A. Achmedov
State Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 11a Shevchenko Str. Tashkent 700060
Republic of Uzbekistan
W.J. Charter
Marakand Minerals Limited, 63, Vosit Vokhidov St., Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan
Abstract. The Lower Carboniferous Khandiza VMS deposit is located
in southeast Uzbekistan close to the border with Tajikistan. Cur-
rently awaiting development by Marakand Minerals Limited
(“Marakand”), the deposit comprises more than 14 Mt of resource
grading 7.2% Zn, 3.5% Pb, 0.9% Cu, 130g/t Ag and 0.4 g/t Au. The
deposit is hosted in Lower Carboniferous (Visean) rhyolite and dacite
extrusives and pyroclastics, closely associated with a rhyolitic
subvolcanic system.. Geochemistry suggests the volcanics show
both tholeiitic and calc-alkaline affinity, consistent with being form-
ing in a rifted continental margin above the south-facing active
destructive plate margin to the north of the Paleotethys Ocean. The
sulphides form multiple lenses of massive banded ore with sulphide-
cemented clastic volcanic breccias and footwall disseminations.
Mineralogy of the sulphides is fairly simple comprising sphalerite,
galena, chalcopyrite and pyrite with minor sulphosalts. Silver re-
ports to sulphosalts and galena as well as other minor silver-rich
sulphide phases. Minor gold appears to be paragenetically late. The
Khandiza region has many features comparable to the Bathurst dis-
trict of Canada where rifting at a supra-subduction continental
margin is responsible for generating the host volcanics to deposits
such as the Brunswick 12 deposit. In southern Uzbekistan, Khandiza
is the only VMS deposit that has so far been well explored. A further
34 mineral occurrences and base metal anomalies have been iden-
tified, all associated with volcanics, and warranting further explora-
tion. 12 of these targets are within 10km of Khandiza itself, and as-
sociated with the Chornova volcanic complex.
Keywords. VMS Deposit, Khandiza, lead-zinc-copper-silver, Uzbekistan
1 Introduction
The Carboniferous-age Khandiza zinc-lead- copper-sil-
ver VMS deposit lies within the Baisun-Kugitang Tectonic
Zone of the South Tien Shan in southern Uzbekistan. This
zone is south of the east-west trending South Gissar and
Zaravshan-Alai structural formations. The Zaravshan-Alai
is one of the terranes in the ‘Tien Shan Gold Belt’ which
contains the major Muruntau gold deposits to the north-
west. The Khandiza deposit was discovered by Soviet ge-
ologists in 1957, yet it was only in 1970 that diamond drill-
ing located significant massive sulphide mineralisation.
Further drilling and underground development delineated
6-5
nine separate orezones before exploration work ceased
in 1974. Oxus Resources Corporation (“Oxus”) com-
menced evaluation of the property in July 1996 identify-
ing the style and setting of the VMS mineralisation and
recognizing additional resource potential. Oxus carried
out further drilling and underground investigations, then
in December 2003 transferred the deposit into the AIM
listed Marakand Minerals Limited who have since com-
pleted a feasibility study. The quoted resource for Khandiza
following this work is 14.412 Mt @ 7.24% Zn, 3.50% Pb,
0.86% Cu, 134 g/t Ag and 0.38 g/t Au. (Marakand’s 2004
Feasibility Study and Annual Report).
2 Geological setting of the deposit
In the Early Carboniferous, the region in which Khandiza
formed lay at the northern edge of the Baisun-Kugitang
microcontinental block, the most southerly of the Tien
Shan continental terranes (Figure 1). The deposit region
faced the South Gissar rift which at the time formed a
probable back arc basin to the northward dipping sub-
duction of the oceanic plate of the Paleothethys, which
lay to the south of Baisun-Kugitang (Filippova 2001). Cor-
relation of this zone to the west is tentative at best, but
clearly structures can be traced around the margin of the
Kazakh craton into the Uralide orogen. The main period
of VMS development in the South Urals was Mid Devo-
nian (Herrington et al. 2005) but the Uralian Ocean was
still open to the east. Western Kazakhstan formed an
Andean-type margin which can be traced through to the
Kurama-Chatka zone in Uzbekistan. It is possible that the
Baisun-Kugitang block has an analogue in one of the con-
tinental slivers located between the Kazakh Plate and the
western Uralides (Yakubchuk et al. 2001, Herrington et
al. in review).
Khandiza is associated with the Chornova volcanic
complex, peripheral to which are a series of satellite rhyo-
lite centres or ‘domes’ both occurring along a linear trend
parallel to, the southern limb of the Hodjaharkan Syn-
616 R.J. Herrington · N.A. Achmedov · W.J. Charter
cline (Figure 2), and also around the Chornova volcanic
complex itself. The Chornova volcanic complex comprises
units of the regionally identified Vakshivar Formation, a
sequence of Lower Carboniferous (Upper Visean) sedi-
ments, rhyolitic volcanics and pyroclastics which is over-
lain by a unit of largely dacites. Mineralisation consists
of massive sulphides in at least three main horizons in-
tercalated within the rhyolitic and dacitic volcanic se-
quence.
Within the Khandiza area, basal Cambrian schists and
gneisses are overlain by an unconformable Lower Car-
boniferous basal conglomerate, which marks the start of
the Vakhshivar Suite, which is sub-divided into a Lower,
Middle and Upper suite (Charter 2004). The Lower
Vakhshivar Suite includes the basal conglomerate, above
which is a limestone overlain by a sandstone and siltstone
sequence with volcanic tuffs representing the onset of
volcanism. The Middle Vakhshivar Suite has been divided
into two stratigraphic packages, the lower comprising
limestones, dolomites, and a thick (up to 500m) volcanic
stratigraphy composed of porphyritic rhyolites, rhyolitic
tuffs (liparites) and dacites.
3 Nature of host volcanics
The rhyolitic volcanic rocks of the Middle Vakhshivar host
the Khandiza massive sulphide mineralisation. The up-
per package comprises limestones and shales of Upper
Visean age. The limestone is characteristically siliceous
and is a stratigraphically persistent unit overlying vol-
canic rocks that mark the effective division between the
Middle and Upper Vakhshivar. The Upper Vakhshivar Suite
is a distinct dominantly sedimentary sequence of sand-
stone/siltstones, shales, minor limestones of Namurian
age with interstitial porphyritic dacites and late stage rhyo-
lites that represent the waning stage of volcanism. The
Vakhshivar Suite, which can be traced to the east through
Vodnisay, Chinarsai and Maidansai, and then north to
Chornova, dips below unconformable cover sediments of
Triassic, Mesozoic and Quaternary age.
Volcanic rocks of the Middle Vakhshivar host the
Khandiza massive sulphide deposit and preliminary analy-
ses of these rocks indicates that they may show both tholei-
itic and calc-alkalic affinity with some of the volcanics
and the related subvolcanic intrusives showing rift-re-
lated settings rather than typical volcanic arc (Figure 3).
The uppermost massive sulphide unit is overlain by a
massively bedded dacite unit with rare earth patterns typi-
cal of calc-alkaline lavas, distinct from the apparently more
primitive suites hosting mineralisation (Fig. 4b, c). This
change in the nature of the volcanics is often marked by
distinct red jasper horizons, up to 10cm thick which clearly
mark some kind of volcanic hiatus. The Khandiza sul-
phide mineralisation appears to be closely related to rhyo-
lite / quartz porphyry sub-volcanics, which have been
mapped underground at the eastern margin of the de-
posit, with a similar chemistry to presumably co-mag-
matic rhyolite extrusives (Fig. 4a).
Mineralisation close to the subvolcanic unit is largely
massive sulphides with peripheral brecciated ores. Im-
mediately to the west of Khandiza, a further sub-volcanic
‘rhyolite dome’ has been identified by drilling (see Fig. 2).
A significant fault is interpreted as separating the
Khandiza massive sulphides and this ‘Khandiza West’
dome and massive sulphide mineralization is interpreted