Late carboniferous porphyry copper mineralization at La voluntad, Neuquén, Argentina: Constraints from Re - Os molybdenite dating

Abstract

The La Voluntad porphyry Cu - Mo deposit in Neuquén, Argentina, is one of several poorly known porphyry-type deposits of Paleozoic to Early Jurassic age in the central and southern Andes. Mineralization at La Voluntad is related to a tonalite porphyry from the Chachil Plutonic Complex that intruded metasedimentary units of the Piedra Santa Complex. Five new Re - Os molybdenite ages from four samples representing three different vein types (i.e., quartz - molybdenite, quartz - sericite - molybdenite and quartz - sericite - molybdenite ± chalcopyrite - pyrite) are identical within error and were formed between ∼312 to ∼316 Ma. Rhenium and Os concentrations range between 34 to 183 ppm and 112 to 599 ppb, respectively. The new Re - Os ages indicate that the main mineralization event at La Voluntad, associated to sericitic alteration, was emplaced during a time span of 1.7±3.2 Ma and that the deposit is Carboniferous in age, not Permian as previously thought. La Voluntad is the oldest porphyry copper deposit so far recognized in the Andes and indicates the presence of an active magmatic arc, with associated porphyry style mineralization, at the proto-Pacific margin of Gondwana during the Early Pennsylvanian.