GOLD DEPOSIT PROSPECTING AND EXPLORATION BASED ON STRUCTURAL PRECONDITIONS

DOI: 10.24411/0869-5997-2019-10003

Abstract

Prospecting for depleting, easily discovered outcropping gold deposits in a number of gold belts and provinces performed nearby identified and producing deposits essentially verifies and revises previously established ore localization preconditions. Along with prospecting based on structural preconditions, geochemical, geophysical and other methods are used including deposit location models. Giant Natalkinskoye and Dukatskoye as well as standard but quite large-scale Kupol, Balei-Taseevskoye, Darasunskoye, Kochbulak and other deposits are provided as examples to show that prospecting is targeted by tracing regional ore-controlling fault zones, conjugate branching faults and their ore-controlling lateral faults up to local and separating series of feathering faults. The author shows that near-surface Au-Ag and AuTe ore formation occurs at the two ore-bearing levels, upper and lower, within a deposit. Drusy, crustified, festoon and intermittent-banded ores are hosted by the upper level, hundreds of meters from paleosurface and, in moderate erosion conditions, day surface. The lower level (600–1000 m or deeper) hosts breccia, banded, netted, massive and disseminated porphyry Au-Cu and Au-Te ores within persistent and strong fractures, in secondary quartzite breccia. Thus, drusy and crustified ores hosted by the upper level directly indicate porphyry Au-Cu and Au-Te ores localization at depth.