Comparison of Rio Tinto, Spain, and Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California: An explanation of a supergiant massive sulfide deposit in an ancient sill-sediment complex

Geochemistry and U–Pb dating of felsic volcanic rocks in the Riotinto–Nerva unit, Iberian Pyrite Belt, Spain: crustal thinning, progressive crustal melting and massive sulphide genesis

“…3a) to the Riotinto mining district (Fig. 3b) and eastwards, at least as far as to the Jarama river section (Boulter 1993a) (Fig. 3c), with local variations that are to be expected in volcanic successions.…”

“…2): (1) a lower mafic-siliciclastic succession of Strunian age (Rodríguez et al 2002), containing a number of dark shale horizons and basaltic rocks, both volcanic and subvolcanic (García-Palomero 1980;Boulter 1993aBoulter ,b, 1996Tornos & Almodóvar 2003;Boulter et al 2004;Mellado et al 2006); (2) a volcanic felsic succession in which volcaniclastic rocks alternate with rhyolitic flows and sills (Boulter 1993a;Pascual et al 2000;Valenzuela et al 2002;Boulter et al 2004); (3) an upper sedimentary succession. The occurrence of rhyolite fragments within this last unit, as well as the chloritic alteration haloes within the felsic succession, indicate that the VHMS deposits in the Riotinto-Nerva unit postdate most of the Volcano-Sedimentary Complex sequence, at least in the Riotinto mining district (García-Palomero 1980).…”

Provenance and geochemistry of sedimentary components in the Volcano-Sedimentary Complex, Iberian Pyrite Belt: discrimination between the sill–sediment-complex and volcanic-pile models

“…For the Jarama River section, the mafic sheets did not supply detritus to the overlying sedimentary rocks, as is demonstrated by the petrographic and chemical contrasts. The volcanic-pile model is not supported by these data, which instead favour intrusive behaviour for the mafic sheets as implied by the abundant field observations of widespread interaction between magma and wet sediment (Oswin 1983;Boulter 1993a). Stratified rocks of a mafic composition are not recorded in the region and it would appear that the peperitic mafic intrusions did not break their cover to contribute to the sediment source.…”

“…Since the adoption of the exhalative model for the mineralization, the host succession has been interpreted as a dominantly effusive, and explosively eruptive, volcanic pile (Kinkel 1962;Routhier et al 1980;Sáez et al 1996Sáez et al , 1999Leistel et al 1998b;Carvalho et al 1999). More recently this model has been challenged by the emergence of the sill-sediment-complex model in which up to 90% of the host rocks are high-level peperitic intrusions (Boulter 1993a(Boulter ,b,c, 1996Mitjavila et al 1997;Boulter et al , 2001Soriano & Marti 1999). The two volcanological models lead to very different conclusions about the chronology of the host rocks, the timing and genesis of alteration, the driving force for the ore-related hydrothermal system, the source of metals, and synmineralization reconstructions (Boulter 1996.…”

Underground Habitats in the Río Tinto Basin: A Model for Subsurface Life Habitats on Mars

“…Regional extension led to the development of continental and marine volcanosedimentary systems that were associated with the accumulation of a thick volcanoclastic record comprised of several volcanosedimentary sequences (Leistel et al, 1998), which consisted of basalts, andesites, and rhyolites. In the Peña de Hierro and Río Tinto areas, this petrological record corresponds to a second felsic volcanic episode (second ryolithic sequence VA2 as shown in Leistel et al, 1998) that produced Tournaisian (ϳ355 Ma) deposits composed mainly of pyroclastic and rhyolitic deposits crosscut by peperitic sills (Boulter, 1993;Colmenero et al, 2002). The submarine magmatic activity induced convection within fractured, brecciated, porous rocks of the ocean floor.…”