Grain-scale and deposit-scale heterogeneity of Re distribution in molybdenite at the Bagdad porphyry Cu-Mo deposit, Arizona
Authors
Electron microprobe analysis of Re concentration in molybdenite grains in 45 samples from 11 rock units at the Bagdad porphyry Cu-Mo deposit found high variability from the grain to the deposit scale.Measured Re concentrations range from 0.5 and in some cases >1. Although microprobemaps showthat the Re variation in some crystals correlateswith growth-related zoning to a limited extent, there was no pattern to the variation in most of the molybdenite grains and the few zoned
examples had no clear sector or consistent oscillatory textures.
Based on our current understanding of trace element incorporation during hydrothermal molybdenite growth, this evidently heterogeneous distribution of Re in molybdenite precludes the use of microprobe spot measurements of Re as a vector to mineralization, which was the original focus of this study. A follow-up analysis by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) using spot diameters of 150 μm reduced the observed intra-grain variability from 1.67 to 1 order of magnitude, but still failed to yield data that correlated with any known geological features. This suggests that any further work toward using molybdenite Re content as a vector to mineralization should either focus on whole-grain methods of analysis or else should use detailed microprobe mapping of molybdenite growth zones to guide point analyses, and then correlate the growth zones in molybdenite samples taken over distance through the deposit. This approach could help shed light on how the development of heterogeneous Re concentrations on the micro-scale relates to the processes of molybdenite precipitation and alteration.
Fig. 7. Three-dimensional plot of Re concentrations across the Bagdad deposit. Circles are average molybdenite Re concentrations for each sample. Gray dots represent the 2-D plane projections corresponding to the 3-D sampling locations.
