Abstract
In the course of our study of the porphyry copper deposits of Mexico, the author became aware of the vast extent of the composite batholiths of Sonora and Sinaloa. We observed that the mineralized porphyritic plutons intrude the pene contemporaneous batholith and are associated with dominantly andesitic volcanism. An explanation of this phenomenon is provided by the phenomenon of dome-in-dome structures observed by Ramberg (1981) in centrifuge model experiments where less dense material is overlain by material of greater density. I have applied this concept to the case of a cooling batholith. The interior of a batholith is inherently unstable gravitationally with respect to the more rapidly cooling upper part which is in contact with the country rock. As a consequence, the upper reaches cool faster, begin crystallizing sooner, and eventually become denser than the lower reaches. Thus, the interior of the batholith becomes buoyant and intrudes the upper part. The early batholith forms a broad, gentle dome intruded by later domes. The process is repeated with buoyant upwelling of the interior of the intrusive domes forming cupolas, some of which breach the surface and form cones or stratovolcanos.
As a result of the severe temperature regimen and dome-in-dome structures, large-scale hydrothermal fluid transfer occurs dominated by volcanic orifices constituting hydrothermal “pumps” or “artesian vents”. Blind porphyries, those that do not breach the surface, have hydrothermal systems that are subsidiary to the master volcanic artesian vents. Such master hydrothermal systems have isotopically dated lifetimes equal to the isotopically dated long-lived hydrothermal activity of stratovolcanos, i. e., up to at least 2.5 m. y. The fluids exported to the volcanic pumps carry ore components extracted from the batholith and country rock. The ore components are distributed and precipitated in the manifold forms of occurrence observed within porphyry systems.
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Damon, P.E. (1986). Batholith-Volcano Coupling in the Metallogeny of Porphyry Copper Deposits. In: Friedrich, G.H., Genkin, A.D., Naldrett, A.J., Ridge, J.D., Sillitoe, R.H., Vokes, F.M. (eds) Geology and Metallogeny of Copper Deposits. Special Publication No. 4 of the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits, vol 4. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70902-9_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70902-9_15
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