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A basement-interacted fluid in the N81 deposit, Pine Point Pb-Zn District, Canada: Sr isotopic analyses of single dolomite crystals

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Abstract

The Mississippi Valley-type Pb-Zn deposits of the Pine Point district (Northwest Territories, Canada) are located close to the eastern edge of the present day Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. The deposits are thought to have formed as the result of basin-wide fluid flow in the Presqu’ile Barrier, the host to the ore deposits. A laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric study of 87Sr/86Sr ratios of ore-related dolomites from the N81 deposit at Pine Point indicates that at least two sources of Sr were present in the mineralizing system. One fluid has a range in Sr isotopic values from 0.07073 to 0.71200 and is interpreted to be derived from Middle Devonian seawater that interacted with clastic units in the basin. The second fluid has higher Sr isotopic values (up to 0.71520), similar to those found in some Canadian Shield brines, and is interpreted to represent an evaporated seawater-derived brine which has interacted with crystalline basement rocks. Reactivation of old structures in the basement may have provided a pathway for cross-formation fluid flow to the site of mineralization. The data suggest that the stratigraphic location of the Pine Point District, near the interface between the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and its basement, may have exerted a fundamental control on the formation of these deposits.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant to SG. The Radiogenic Isotope Facility at the University of Alberta is partly supported by an NSERC Major Resources Support Grant. We would like to acknowledge an early review of this manuscript by A. MacNeil and reviews by C. McClung, Georges Beaudoin and an anonymous reviewer.

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Author notes

  1. Paulina Gromek

    Present address: BP Canada, 240-4 Avenue SW, Calgary, AB, T2N 2H3, Canada

  2. Antonio Simonetti

    Present address: Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, 156 Fitzpatrick Hall, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E3, Canada

    Paulina Gromek, Sarah A. Gleeson & Antonio Simonetti

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  1. Paulina Gromek
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  2. Sarah A. Gleeson
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  3. Antonio Simonetti
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Correspondence to Sarah A. Gleeson.

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Editorial handling: G. Beaudoin

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Gromek, P., Gleeson, S.A. & Simonetti, A. A basement-interacted fluid in the N81 deposit, Pine Point Pb-Zn District, Canada: Sr isotopic analyses of single dolomite crystals. Miner Deposita 47, 749–754 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00126-012-0435-2

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