Quick
Search: 		  
advanced search
 GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help 
Economic Geology Signup for GSW Email News
JOURNAL HOME HELP CONTACT PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Economic Geology; December 1978; v. 73; no. 8; p. 1690-1705; DOI: 10.2113/gsecongeo.73.8.1690
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Goldhaber, M. B.
Right arrow Articles by Rye, R. O.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
GeoRef
Right arrow GeoRef Citation

Origin of a South Texas roll-type deposit; II, Sulfide petrology and sulfur isotope studies

M. B. Goldhaber, R. L. Reynolds, and R. O. Rye

U. S. Geol. Surv., Denver, Colo., United States

Petrologic and sulfur isotopic studies have been carried out on drill core samples from a roll-type uranium deposit in the mid-Tertiary Catahoula Tuff, Webb County, south Texas. Epigenetic iron disulfide minerals formed in two distinct stages. The first stage involved sulfidization of the host rock by sulfide (H 2 S, HS-)-bearing solutions that emanated from a fault about 1.5 km downdip from and subparallel to the orebody. Pyrite was the dominant iron disulfide mineral formed from this fault sulfide. The isotopic composition (delta 34 S) of first-stage iron disulfide is quite heavy (>0 per mil), in part because the fault-derived H 2 S was isotopically heavy. The development of the second-stage sulfides was related to processes that formed the uranium roll. Iron disulfide minerals produced during this second stage commonly occur as rims around the first-stage sulfides. The rims are exclusively marcasite in and adjacent to ore, but the pyrite content in these rims increases with increasing distance from ore. The sulfur of the second-stage sulfides in the vicinity of the roll front is isotopically light (--25 to --40 per mil). The virtual absence of organic carbon in the host sand precludes a bacterial origin for the ore-stage iron disulfide minerals and, therefore, eliminates bacterial metabolism as the mechanism for isotopic fractionation. Instead, the sulfur source for ore-stage sulfides was preore (first stage) sulfides, remobilized via partial oxidation to soluble metastable sulfur oxyanions.

This record provided courtesy of AGI/GeoRef.




This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 American MineralogistHome page
R. M. Hazen, R. C. Ewing, and D. A. Sverjensky
Evolution of uranium and thorium minerals
American Mineralogist, October 1, 2009; 94(10): 1293 - 1311.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 ScienceHome page
L. M. Cathles and L. M. Cathles III
Scales and Effects of Fluid Flow in the Upper Crust
Science, April 20, 1990; 248(4953): 323 - 329.
[Abstract] [PDF]


JOURNAL HOME HELP CONTACT PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2009 by Society of Economic Geologists