Proposed Temporal Patterns forMineral Deposits in the Broken Hill Region

New South Wales, Australia

All images and text are Copyright © 2005 by Larry Robinson

PowerPoint 6-7

Prepared as part of:

The Spatial and Temporal Distribution of theMetal Mineralisation in Eastern Australia

and the Relationship of the Observed Patternsto Giant Ore Deposits

byLarry Robinson

A thesis submitted for the degree of

PhD

2006

The spatial distribution and clustering of mineral deposits allow us to distinguish three broad categories that also have an apparent temporal relationship:

The High Temperature TypeThe Medium Temperature TypeThe Low Temperature Type

The High Temperature Type Deposits

Broken Hill TypePegmatite TypeCorruga TypeGreat Eastern Type

New South Wales mineral exploration data package, 2004New South Wales Department of Mineral Resources, CD-ROM

Plan View of the Giant and Small Broken Hill Type Deposits

Plan View of Pegmatite Type Deposits

Plan View of Corruga Type Deposits

Plan View of Great Eastern Type Deposits

The most important characteristic of the High Temperature Types is that the majority of the deposits occur proximal to the Broken Hill Type deposits.

The Medium Temperature Type Deposits

Thackaringa TypeIron Duke Pyrite Type Mount Robe TypeEttlewood TypeSilver King TypeWaukeroo TypeGold Vein Type

New South Wales mineral exploration data package, 2004New South Wales Department of Mineral Resources, CD-ROM

Plan View of Thackaringa Type Deposits

Plan View of Iron Duke Pyrite Type Deposits

Plan View of Mt Robe Type Deposits

Plan View of Ettlewood Type Deposits

Plan View of Silver King Type Deposits

Plan View of Waukeroo Type Deposits

Plan View of Gold Vein Type Deposits

The most important characteristic of the Medium Temperature Types is that the majority of the deposits occur at distances varying from 15 to 50 km from the giants.

Proposed Temporal Evolution of theHigh and Medium Temperature Type

Deposits

Cross Section Showing Plumelets Commencing Under Oceanic Crust

Year 0 million1

Note the relatively flat-lying ocean floor stratigraphy.

Year 1 million1

The ocean floor stratigraphy is becoming more distorted.

Year 2 million1

The ocean floor stratigraphy is near its present day distortion.

Year 3 million1

The ocean floor stratigraphy is at its present day distortion.

Year 4 million1

The ocean floor stratigraphy is at its present day distortion.

Year 4 million1

Plan View of the Giant and Small Broken Hill Type Deposits

Plan View Clustering Broken Hill Type Deposits Using AUTOCLUST3

The Plumelet Generating the High Temperature Type Deposits

Detail of Plumelet Generating the High Temperature Type Deposits

Detail of the High Temperature and Medium Temperature Type Deposits

Dying Plumelet Generating the Low Temperature Type Deposits

Years 6 - 14 million1

The Low Temperature Type Deposits

Vein Pyrite TypeVein Copper Type

New South Wales mineral exploration data package, 2004New South Wales Department of Mineral Resources, CD-ROM

Plan View of Vein Pyrite Type Deposits

Plan View of Vein Copper Type Deposits

The most important characteristic of the Low Temperature Types is that the majority of the deposits are scattered uniformly over the entire region with no obvious relationship to the Broken Hill Type deposits.

Thank YouThe End

REFERENCES

1. Parr, J. M., Stevens, B. P., Carr, G. R., and Page, R. W., 2004, Subseafloor origin for Broken Hill Pb-Zn-Ag mineralization, New South Wales, Australia: Geology, v. 32, p. 589-592.

2. Broken Hill Cross Section from Broken Hill Stratigraphy Map, 1989, NSW Geological Survey, Sydney, Australia.

3. V. Estivill-Castro and I. Lee. AUTOCLUST: Automatic Clustering via Boundary Extraction for Massive Point-data Sets. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Geocomputation, 2000. Extended version is available at http://www.cs.newcastle.edu.au/Dept/techrep.html as a technical report.