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Geological Society of America Bulletin

Relation of Metal Provinces in Western America to Subduction of

Oceanic Lithosphere
RICHARD H SILLITOE

Geological Society of America Bulletin 1972;83, no. 3;813-818

doi: 10.1130/0016-7606(1972)83[813:ROMPIW]2.0.CO;2

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Notes and Discussions
RICHARD H. SILLITOE Institute de Investigations Geolbgicas, Agustinas 785, Casilla 10465, Santiago,
Chile
Relation of Metal Provinces in Western America to
Subduction of Oceanic Lithosphere
ABSTRACT
In the orogenic belts of western North and
South America, metal provinces are aligned
approximately parallel to the continental
margins, and, despite irregularities, a general
pattern of provinces comprises the following
sequence from west to east: Fe; Cu (with some
Au and Mo); Pb, Zn, and Ag; and in some
regions Sn or Mo. The genesis of these metal
provinces is attributed to the release of metals
or associations of metals from basaltic oceanic
crust and pelagic sediments during partial
melting at progressively deeper levels on sub-
duction zones which dipped eastward beneath
the continent; the metals subsequently as-
cended as components of calc-alkaline magma.
Initially, the metals were released from the
mantle at the East Pacific Rise, transported to
the margins of the Pacific basin and thrust
beneath the continental margins by the process
of sea-floor spreading. This model surmounts
the problem of envisaging the existence in the
crust or upper mantle of long, narrow zones
characterized by a concentration of an in-
dividual metal or association of metals.
In the context of this model, possible ex-
planations may be advanced for several features
of the distribution in both space and time of
metal provinces in western America, including:
the occurrence of multiple metallogenic epochs
within a given metal province; the difference
in age of the dominant metallogenic epoch from
one region to another; and the concentration
or scarcity of metal deposits in certain regions.
INTRODUCTION
The origin of metal provinces and the source
of their contained metals are controversial
topics, and even recently, satisfactory solutions
to the problems were still apparently lacking
(Krauskopf, 1967). Attention was focused on
Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 83, p. 813-818, 1 fig., March 1972
813
these fundamental questions by Noble (1970),
who accurately delimited the metal provinces
of the western United States. He considered
metal provinces to reflect primitive heter-
ogeneities of metal distribution in the under-
lying upper mantle, and to have been little
influenced by continental crustal structures
or processes. Whereas the proposal that the
continental crust played only a minor role in
the formation of metal deposits of magmatic
affiliation in western America is accepted by
the writer, the notion that the mantle distribu-
tion of metals is directly reflected in the sur-
face configuration of metal provinces merits
reconsideration in the light of the recently
formulated theory of lithosphere plate tectonics
(Isacks and others 1968; Le Pichon, 1968;
Morgan, 1968). This theory implies that active
orogens, such as the Andean Cordillera, which
lie parallel to compressive plate junctures, are
not underlain by an immobile column of
mantle material, but by a mantle through
which a cold, inclined slab of oceanic lith-
osphere is constantly sinking (Fig. 1).
The classical theory of geosynclinal develop-
ment has been reinterpreted in terms of plate
tectonics (Dewey and Bird, 1970). In view of
the close interrelation between orogenic
development and ore deposition (for example,
Bilibin, 1968), it should prove instructive
to apply the concepts of plate tectonics to
interpretations of metallogenesis. The model
presented here attempts to explain the origin
and distribution of metal provinces in western
North and South America in terms of the
theory of plate tectonics.
METAL PROVINCES IN WESTERN
AMERICA
In the western United States, Noble (1970)
recognized an over-all change in the metal-
content of ore deposits eastward from the
814 RICHARD H. SILLITOE
Lithospheric plate moving
away from ocean rise
ASTHENOSPHERE
500
Km
Figure 1. A diagrammatic representation of the
generalized sequence of metal provinces in western
continental margin, in the sequence Hg, Cu, Au,
Ag, W, Pb, and Mo. Although this pattern of
metal provinces cannot be exactly duplicated
in other parts of western North and South
America, similar transverse changes in the
metal contents of ore deposits are nonetheless
evident.
In British Columbia, Brown (1969) demon-
strated the sequence Fe, Cu, Mo, Zn, and Pb
from west to east. In Peru, Bellido and others
(1969) described a discontinuous Fe province
along the Pacific littoral, followed eastward by
a Cu province with some Au, a polymetallic
province dominated by Pb, Zn, Ag, and Cu,
and still farther east a less important province
in which Au, Pb, Cu, and Sn are the principal
metals of economic interest. The Fe and Cu
provinces can be recognized farther south in
Chile (Ruiz and Ericksen, 1962; Ruiz and
others, 1965), and the Pb, Zn, Ag, and Cu
province extends southward into the Altiplano
MESOZOIC-CENOZOIC OROGEN
Fe (Au)-Cu Ag-Pb-Zn
Zone of cole- alkaline intrusive and volcanic rocks
MOHO
700
America in the context of a plate tectonics-subduction
model.
of western Bolivia (Ahlfeld, 1967) and western
Argentina (Stoll, 1964, 1965). The porphyry
copper deposits in the Cu province of Chile and
Peru possess important quantities of Mo, and,
in Chile, Au deposits are located in the western
part of the Cu province. The easternmost
polymetallic province in Peru, in which Sn is a
component metal, continues southward into the
Bolivian Sn-W province (Ahlfeld, 1967;
Stoll, 1965). In Ecuador and Colombia, the
smaller number of known ore deposits renders
metal provinces less easy to define, but it can
be appreciated that a western Cu province
(with some Mo and Au) is flanked landward
by a Pb-Zn province, which in Ecuador
possesses important quantities of Ag (Goossens,
1969; Singewald, 1950); these two provinces
are apparently northward extensions of the Cu
and Pb, Zn, Ag, and Cu provinces of Peru.
In Mexico, Noble (1970) recognized a change
eastward in the dominant metal in ore deposits,
 RELATION OF METAL PROVINCES IN WESTERN AMERICA TO SUBDUCTION
from Cu to Ag to Pb, and Gabelman and
Krusiewski (1968) depicted a Pacific coastal
Fe province, followed to the east by a Au-Cu
province and still farther east by a province
containing Cu, Pb, Zn, and Ag.
Differences in the sequence of metal prov-
inces eastward from different parts of the
Pacific continental margin of America are ap-
parent, but the similarities are considered
sufficiently striking to indicate a general pattern
from Fe, to Cu with some Au and Mo, to Pb,
Zn, and Ag, and perhaps finally to Sn or Mo.
ORIGIN OF METAL PROVINCES
It is proposed that post-Paleozoic metal
provinces in western North and South America
are related to subduction zones which were
active beneath the western American continen-
tal margin at times during the Mesozoic and
early and middle Cenozoic (for example, At-
water, 1970; Hamilton, 1969), and that are
still active beneath Central America, the
Andean Cordillera, the Cascade Range of
Oregon and Washington, and the Alaskan
Peninsula.
It is further proposed that much of the metals
contained in post-Paleozoic magmatogene ore
deposits in western America were derived from
the mantle at the East Pacific Rise and its
predecessors, and associated with basic mag-
matism. From the ocean rise, the metals were
carried toward the margins of the Pacific
Ocean basin as components of basaltic-gabbroic
oceanic crust and overlying pelagic sediments,
and thrust beneath the continents along
inclined Benioff zones. Metals were released
from the underthrust oceanic crust and sed-
iments during partial melting, and incorporated
in ascending bodies of calc-alkaline magma.
The metals attained high crustal levels as
components of the magmas, finally to be con-
centrated in fluid phases associated with the
roof-zones of intrusive masses and also with
comagmatic extrusive rocks (Fig. 1).
Evidence for derivation of metals from the
mantle at ocean rises is provided by the
occurrence of anomalously high concentrations
of metals in pelagic sediments on the crests
and flanks of the East Pacific Rise and other
ocean rises (Bostrom and Peterson, 1969;
Bostrom and others, 1969). Brines and sed-
iments rich in metals are also found along an
active divergent plate margin in the Red Sea
(Degens and Ross, 1969). The cupriferous
pyrite deposits of Cyprus correspond to metal
815
concentrations in layer 2 of the oceanic crust,
in the context of Cass' (1968) interpretation
of the Troodos ophiolite complex as part of the
ocean rise system in the Tethys Ocean.
Noble (1970) explained the close spatial
association of metal deposits and igneous rocks
in the western United States by proposing that
metals rose from the mantle along the same
conduits as those previously utilized by bodies
of magma. However, mineralogical and age-
determination studies of porphyry copper,
porphyry molybdenum, and magmatic-hydro-
thermal Pb-Zn deposits have shown that min-
eralization and alteration possess a close tem-
poral, as well as spatial, relation to igneous rocks
(Fournier, 1967; Livingston and others, 1968;
Laughlin and others, 1969; Ohmoto and others,
1966). Therefore, the metals contained in
these types of ore deposits were more likely
emplaced as integral parts of calc-alkaline
magmas, a conclusion supported by exper-
imental studies of Burnham (1967).
In view of the apparent close genetic tie
between igneous rocks and spatially related
ore deposits, the landward change in the metals
characterizing western American metal prov-
inces is considered to be analogous to the
systematic increase in the potash-to-silica
ratios of andesitic volcanic rocks landward
from the circum-Pacific continental margin;
the increase is apparently unrelated to crustal
composition and thickness, and dependent on
the depth of the underlying Benioff zone
(Dickinson, 1968). Also, comparable variations
in potash content have been documented for
post-Paleozoic calc-alkaline volcanic and in-
trusive rocks in western North America
(Moore, 1959, 1962; Bateman and Dodge,
1970). These transverse changes in the com-
positions of calc-alkaline igneous rocks and
metal deposits are visualized as being dependent
on processes of partial melting on an underlying
subduction zone, as proposed for compositional
changes in andesitic volcanic rocks by Dickin-
son (1968). Recent workers (for example,
Oxburgh and Turcotte, 1970) have envisaged
the attainment of melting temperatures by
frictional heating due to slippage on a sub-
duction zone. Such volumes of poorly con-
solidated sediments as escaped being scraped
off and added to the continental margin would
melt at the lowest temperatures, followed at
greater depths and higher temperatures by the
lowest melting fractions of the basaltic-
gabbroic oceanic crust (Oxburgh and Turcotte,
816 RICHARD H. SILLITOE

1970). It is here proposed that products of sea-floor spreading, or to an above-average rate

partial fusion at shallow depths on a subduction of volcanism and metal-production on the cor-
zone may be enriched in Fe and Cu (with some responding segment of ocean rise, or, more
Au and Mo), giving way at deeper levels to a fundamentally, to an inhomogeneous distribu-
predominance of Pb, Zn, and Ag, and possibly tion of metals in the upper mantle beneath the
at the deepest levels to Sn or Mo (Fig. 1). ocean rise (Sillitoe, in prep.).
The relative narrowness and notable north- In British Columbia, Brown (1969) described
south orientation of the long axes of the metal two broad east-trending zones character-
provinces would seem to support their depend- ized by a paucity of ore deposits; these zones
ence on processes of partial melting, since the cut across the longitudinal metal provinces and
thermal regime on a subduction zone might be tectonic units. It might be suggested that such
expected to possess similar longitudinal con- zones face lengths of ocean rise along which
tinuity and to undergo relatively abrupt metal production has been consistently low.
transverse changes. Similarly, the restriction of important Sn
On the other hand, it is difficult to visualize mineralization in western South America to
the existence, parallel to the continental the Bolivian Sn province may reflect a con-
margin, of a series of long, narrow zones in the centration of Sn in the upper mantle beneath
upper mantle, each enriched in an individual the East Pacific Rise over the latitudes spanned
metal or metal association, as demanded by by Bolivia.
existing theories for the mantle-derivation of A decrease in age of the most productive
metals. A similar problem is encountered by period of mineralization southward from
theories in support of a crustal origin for the British Columbia through the western United
metals in western American metal provinces. States to Mexico, noted by Noble (1970), may
The concept of the dependence of metal reflect a similar, though of course earlier,
provinces on partial melting on zones of sub- migration of the main episode of metal produc-
duction is further supported by the existence tion at the ocean rise.
of a similar, though more complicated, series This brief consideration of the possibility of
of metal provinces in the northern Appala- relating metal provinces to activity on under-
chians (Gabelman, 1968), where orogenic lying zones of subduction indicates that basic
evolution included the operation of subduc- research in economic geology should be directed
tion zones (Bird and Dewey, 1970). toward the world ocean rise system and the
oceanic crust, in an attempt to assess the viabil-
DISCUSSION ity of some of the suggestions advanced above.
Several problematic features of the spatial
and temporal distribution of metal provinces ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
are considered to be explicable in terms of the I am grateful to Professor Konrad B. Kraus-
above model: kopf and Dr. James W. Stewart for reading the
In view of the rektive permanency of com- manuscript.
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MANUSCRIPT RECEIVED BY THE SOCIETY JULY 19,
1971
REVISED MANUSCRIPT RECEIVED SEPTEMBER 14,
1971
PRESENT ADDRESS: DEPARTMENT OF MINING
GEOLOGY, ROYAL SCHOOL OF MINES, IMPERIAL
COLLEGE, PRINCE CONSORT ROAD, LONDON,
S.W. 7, ENGLAND