40AR/39AR AND K–AR GEOCHRONOLOGY OF MAGMATIC AND HYDROTHERMAL EVENTS IN A CLASSIC LOW-SUPHIDATION EPITHERMAL BONANZA DEPOSIT: EL PEñON, NORTHERN CHILE

Abstract

The epithermal El Peñon gold–silver deposit consists of quartz–adularia veins emplaced within a late Upper Paleocene rhyolitic dome complex, located in the Paleocene–Lower Eocene Au–Ag belt of northern Chile. Detailed K–Ar and 40Ar/39Ar geochronology on volcano–plutonic rocks and hydrothermal minerals were carried out to constrain magmatic and hydrothermal events. The Paleocene to Lower Eocene magmatism in the El Peñon area is confined to a rhomb-shaped basin, which was controlled by N–S trending normal faults and both NE- and NW-trending transtensional fault systems. The earliest products of the basin-filling sequences comprise of Middle to Upper Paleocene (~59–55 Ma) welded rhyolitic ignimbrites and andesitic to dacitic lavas, with occasional dacitic dome complexes. Later, rhyolitic and dacitic dome complexes (~55–52 Ma) represent the waning stages of volcanism during the latest Upper Paleocene and the earliest Eocene. Lower Eocene porphyry intrusives (~48–43 Ma) mark the end of the magmatism in the basin and a change to a compressive tectonomagmatic regime. 40Ar/39Ar geochronology of hydrothermal adularia from the El Peñon deposit yields ages between 51.0±0.6 and 53.1±0.5 Ma. These results suggest that mineralization occurred slightly after the emplacement of the El Peñon rhyolitic dome at 54.5±0.6 Ma (40Ar/39Ar age) and was closely tied to later dacitic–rhyodacitic bodies of 52 to 53 Ma (K–Ar ages), probably as short-lived pulses related to single volcanic events.