Synopses & Reviews
This book demonstrates the direct link between petroleum, the derivative of organic materials, and ore bodies. The studies reported here highlight the common factors between hydrocarbons and mineral concentrations, such as heat sources, migration routes and likely traps. It emphasizes the role that hydrothermal processes play in the genesis of both petroleum generation and ore-grade mineralization. The presence of oil residue in the form of bitumen and pyrobitumen in all sediment-hosted ore bodies throughout the geological record is a testimony to their common diagenetic history. Studies of active hydrothermal systems reported in this book describe the processes and derivatives in these environments, linking hydrocarbon generation and mineral precipitation. A comparison with residual oil in many ore bodies and mineralization occurrences in the geological record, as depicted in this book, can be explained in terms of processes in active hydrothermal systems. One of the most interesting and challenging recent discoveries, that of living nano-bacteria, is reported in this book. The `nanobes', as they have recently been dubbed, have been suggested as the link between the living and non-living matter. The resemblance of these nano-organisms to fossil forms observed in a Martian meteorite have been reported recently in the media. Likewise the similarity to nano-bacteria in Archaean sediments is highlighted in two chapters of the book.
Synopsis
A 'soft-rock' petroleum-type approach to exploration for 'hard-rock' minerals in sedimentary basins D. Taylor I. Introduction Several major groups of ore deposits are found as tabular, stratiform bodies or as cross- cutting but essentially stratabound deposits within sedimentary basins. Important exam- ples are oxide and carbonate ores of iron and manganese, copper and zinc-lead sulphides and gold-uranium deposits. Where the host basins have been strongly in- verted and deeply eroded and the mineralized horizons brought to outcrop, the laterally extensive nature of the mineralization usually results in outcrop or subcrop of the ore itself. Direct detection by geological or geochemical prospecting is then possible. Major deposits also occur in basins which have not been strongly deformed and deeply eroded as non-outcropping sub-horizontal sheets (Polish Kupferschiefer deposits of the fore-Sudetic Monocline) or linear belts (Vibumam Trend, Missouri, Admiral Bay, NW Australia). I believe that both the Polish Kupferschiefer and Admiral Bay de- posits were found by chance during oil and gas exploration, and deposits of this type are similar in attitude and dimensions to small-medium size oil and gasfields.
Table of Contents
Introduction.
Part I: Processes and Indicators in Organic-Metal Interaction. 1. Alteration and migration processes of organic matter in hydrothermal systems and implications for metallogenesis;
B.R.T. Simoneit. 2. Paragenesis of gold- and hydrocarbon-bearing fluids in gold deposits;
J. Parnell, A. McCready. 3. Trace elements and Sr isotope composition of waters from the Great Artesian Basin of Australia: Implications for the formation of ore deposits and hydrocarbon resources;
M. Gasparon, K.D. Collerson. Part II: Proterozoic Organic / Metal Associations. 1. Nature of organic matter in the early Proterozoic, earliest life forms and metal associations;
M. Glikson, D. Taylor. 2. Organic and mineral matter in a Precambrian Shungite deposit from Karelia, Russia;
M. Mastalerz, et al. 3. Influence of basin fill architecture on fluid flow and ore genesis in the Mount Isa Basin, northern Australia;
B. McConachie, et al. 4. Metallogenesis and hydrocarbon generation in northern Mount Isa Basin, Australia; implications for ore grade mineralization;
M. Glikson, et al. Part III: Palaeozoic: Hydrothermal Systems and Sediment-Hosted Ore Bodies. 1. Volcanic and post-volcanic (hydrothermal) activity in an intra-Sudetic basin, SW Poland: Implications for mineralization;
K. Mastalerz, M. Mastalerz. 2. Organic matter and metal enrichment in black shales of the Illinois Basin, U.S.A.;
E. Ripley, N.R. Shaffer. 3. Organic matter from Zechstein copper deposits (Kupferschiefer) in Poland;
Z. Sawlowicz, A.P. Gize. 4. Metalloporphyrin composition and a model for early diagenetic mineralization of the Permian Kupferschiefer, SW Poland;
F. Czechowski. 5. The carbonate-hosted base-metal sulphide Polaris deposit in the Canadian Arctic: Organic matter alteration and clay diagenesis;
Y. Heraux. 6. Nature and source of carbonate mineralisation in coals, Eastern Australia;
S.D. Golding, et al. 7. Minerals in coal;
J.D. Saxby. 8. Mineralisation in eastern Australian coals: A function of oil generation and primary migration;
M. Glikson, et al. Part IV: Mesozoic &endash; Tertiary to Recent. 1. Implications of hydrocarbons in gold-bearing epithermal systems, selected examples from the Canadian Cordillera;
M. Mastalerz, et al. 2. The association of gold-mercury mineralization and hydrocarbons in the coastal ranges of northern California;
R. Sherlock. 3. Thermal history of selected sedimentary basins in an island: Evidence from organic matter and fluid inclusion;
J. Aizawa. 4. Nano-bacteria, fiction or fact;
P. Uwins, et al. Part V: Summary / Future Directions;
M. Glikson, M. Mastalerz.