A Permian rhenium–osmium radiometric age for bornite at the Rock Creek deposit, Spar Lake copper–silver district (Montana, USA)—a link to the Sonoma Orogeny and the copper–silver–vanadium Midcontinent Belt?

Abstract

We report rhenium–osmium (Re–Os) isotope data and age information for bornite, chalcocite, and chalcopyrite from the Spar Lake and Rock Creek copper–silver (Cu–Ag) sediment-hosted deposits in the Spar Lake district, Mesoproterozoic Belt–Purcell Basin, Montana, USA. The Re–Os geochronometers in chalcocite and chalcopyrite do not record plausible mineralization ages at the Spar Lake deposit, which is currently interpreted to have formed at ca. 1410 million years ago (Ma) from prior work. However, a Re–Os isochron date of bornite (253.2 ± 26.9 Ma, n = 6) at Rock Creek with an extremely high initial 187Os/188Os ratio of 19.1 ± 0.2 can be interpreted as resetting of Re–Os in bornite that originally recorded a Mesoproterozoic timing of Cu–Ag mineralization in the Spar Lake district. The new Re–Os age of bornite at Permian–Triassic boundary time is compatible with a resetting at the time of building of the Sonoma Foreland Basin that resulted from the loading of an accretionary prism (i.e., Golconda Allochthon) onto the North American Plate. Our ca. 253 Ma bornite age does not constrain whether Cu was introduced to Spar Lake at this time or simply redistributed, but our findings open the possibility that Cu–Ag mineralization in the Spar Lake district might have taken place not only in the Mesoproterozoic, but also in addition, at Permian–Triassic boundary time. Indeed, numerous Cu–Ag, vanadium–uranium (V–U) sandstone-hosted and black shale-hosted deposits of assumed Permian to Triassic age are documented in the Midcontinent copper belt from western Texas to southern Idaho, including (1) Cu–Ag sediment-hosted deposits in western Colorado, southeastern Utah, and northern Arizona and (2) the Montpelier and Lake Alice sandstone-hosted Cu–Ag deposits in southeastern Idaho and western Wyoming, respectively.