The location and Potential Assessment of the Ore Regions in the South-Western Part of the Koryak Highland

Abstract

The relevance of the work is that the orogenic belts of the mainland of the Kamchatka Territory are saturated with minerals confined to the belts formed by the successive growth of the continental margins from the ancient ones from the north-west to the south-east. Such belts with deposits of Ag, Au, Sn, Hg, S are the Northwest Koryak Oligocene and South Koryak Miocene, formed on the northern and southern borders of the Central Koryak margin of the Late Cretaceous continent. They are formed in the Oligocene and Miocene by isolated volcanogens of local andesitic fields, broken by granitoids of tectonic activation. Ore areas are associated with them, the localization of which will ensure an increase in the reserves of developed placer deposits. The purpose of the work is to establish tectonic patterns of formation of volcanogens, associated ore regions and obtain new data on their forecast. In the North-Western zone, a metallogenic zone took shape with the Unneivayamsky, Gaichavayamsky and Palmatkinsky regions, associated with the same named volcanogenes, in the South Kamchatka – with the Vetrovayamsky volcanogen. Methodology and research methods. The methodology lies in the block-key structure of the lithosphere and its earth’s crust on the active margins of the continent. The methodology is based on establishing a systemic connection between the structural elements of the geological and geophysical system «tectonics-volcanogens». The results of the work and their analysis. A scheme of patterns of distribution of known and predicted ore regions, nodes of the south-west of the Koryak upland is proposed. They are caused by block-key tectonics and are localized in the links of a series of longitudinal subparallel regionally different age structures of NE strike, successively expanding the continent to the southeast. The links are discrete and determine the size of the ore regions. The distinguished links of the Northwest Koryak Oligocene and South Koryak Miocene belts are considered. In the first northwestern region, nesting volcanogens are formed by transverse interblock faults of the lithosphere. They arose at the intersection of the Late Cretaceous foundation and the southern edge of the adjacent Penzhinsk structural-facial zone with transverse interblock faults. At the intersections, a lithospheric column of granitoid activation matter of the upper mantle and the Late Cretaceous sedimentary section of the basement is formed. It is concluded that the volcanogen in the South Koryak belt, has a linear nature, formed by the conclusion of a linear NE of Vetrovayamsk ledge of the basement and cover between two transverse interblock faults. There ore-bearing secondary quartzites created the Ilpinsk ore region with large deposits of native sulfur with Ag, Au, Hg, S. The orogenic volcanism on the active margins of the continents is associated with the basic elements of tectonics and magmatism, which created the conditions for the formation of minerogenic taxons. The role of geotectonic and metallogenic aspects of the author’s methodology of the block-key structure of the active lithosphere margins is evident on the examples of the orogenic Oligocene and Miocene belts. It is effective in forecasting ore areas and evaluating them with subsequent exploration works.