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Ozernovskoe, Ozernovskoye, Ozernovsky
Kamchatka, Russia
Main commodities: Au Ag


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The Ozernovskoe or Ozernovsky or Ozernovskoye epithermal gold deposit is located ~150 km SW of the eastern Pacific coastal town of Ivashka, 140 km north of the town of Klyuchi and 80 km west of the Bering Sea, and lies in the central mountainous core of the Kamchatka Peninsular, far eastern Russia.

Kamchatka has been divided into three en echelon metallogenic belts; the Central Koryak belt to the NW which partially overlaps the 1000 km, NNE-SSW trending Central Kamchatka Belt to its SE. To the SE again, this latter belt overlaps the parallel East Kamchatka Belt. Ozernovskoe lies within the northern half of the Central Kamchatka Belt which hosts a series of epithermal Au-Ag and porphyry Cu-Mo deposits and lies along the Late Oligocene to Holocene Central Kamchatka volcano-plutonic belt. This belt is composed of andesite, dacite and rhyolite, interbedded with sedimentary rocks and ignimbrite. These overlie the metamorphic rocks of the Late Palaeozoic Sredinny Kamchatka Terrane, and silicic volcanic rocks of the Late Cretaceous Irunei island arc terrane. These basement terranes are dominated by submarine volcanic and sedimentary rocks that include shallow marine rocks in the lower part of the sequence, overlain by non-marine deposits at the top of the succession. Volcanism within the Central Kamchatka Volcanic Belt was mainly active during the Miocene, but continued until the Pliocene-Holocene. While Ozernovskoe lies in the northern half of this metallogenic belt, the bulk of the mineral deposits are clustered in the southern half (the paragraph above is drawn from Takahashi et al., 2013).

Ozernovskoe occurs within the Central Kamchatka volcano-plutonic belt, and is confined to a wedge-shaped segment adjoining the central part of a local 8 to 10 km diameter Neogene volcanic edifice. The volcano is localised in the large, 20 to 25 km diameter, Pravoukinsk volcano-tectonic structure formed at the intersection of the north-south trending Main Kamchatka fault and the NW striking Palan-Komandor transverse fault zone (Konstantinov, 1994). Host rocks comprise diorite porphyries, andesite-basalts, quartz-andesites, gabbriods and rhyolites, which together form a composite multiphase sub-volcanic pipe interpreted to represent the volcanic neck (Vakin and Naumova, 1994; Kovalenker and Plotinskaya, 2005). The geology of the deposit has also been summarised as being within a Miocene basaltic palaeovolcano, overprinted by sills and dykes of andesite-basalts, and cut by volcanic domes of andesites, andesite-dacites, dacites, magmatic breccias and tuffisites (Kozlov and Okrugin, 2022 after Petrenko. 1999; Litvinov, A.F. et al., 1999; Demin A.G., 2015).

A broad zone of propylitic, epidote-(prehnite)-chlorite, carbonate-albite-chlorite and zeolite–chlorite facies alteration preceded and surrounds the mineralisation. Mineralisation is restricted to linear and local equi-dimensional zones of advanced argillic alteration with mono-quartz, alunite-quartz, diaspore-quartz, diaspore-quartz-pyrophyllite, quartz-kaolinite-dickite, kaolinite-dickite-quartz, and quartz-smectite-chlorite facies, regarded to be typical of high sulphidation epithermal mineralisation (e.g., White and Hedenquist, 1995). Ore grade mineralisation occurs as both steep- and shallow-dipping linear and lenticular stockworks composed of thin, 2 to 5 cm thick quartz veinlets, which are sometimes transformed to mineralised breccias, controlled by intersections of NW-striking steep-dipping faults and related fractures. The bulk (~80%) of the ore grade mineralisation is concentrated in lenticular-shaped bonanza zones (Vakin and Naumova, 1994). These bonanza zones have Au:Ag ratios of ~1, and are enriched in Te and Se with Te/Se ratio from 0.2 to 70, averaging 1.5 (Kovalenker and Plotinskaya, 2005). According to Kozlov and Okrugin (2022) the ore occurs as quartz veins and stockworks hosted by hydrothermal silification zones, consisting of quartz, kaolinite, dickite and alunite.

Ores are characterised by veinlet, breccia to cockade and colloform structures. Pyrite accounts for up to 90% of the ore minerals and varies from <1 up to 5 to 10% of the mineralisation. Quartz is the dominant gangue minerals, with ore minerals not exceeding 5 to 10%, averaging 1 to 3%, the most widespread of which are pyrite and tennantite-tetrahedrite as well as lesser goldfieldite. Less abundant minerals include chalcopyrite, marcasite, arsenopyrite, bornite, chalcocite, enargite, luzonite, hematite, cassiterite, molybdenite, galena, sphalerite and acanthite, sulphosalts containing Se, Bi, Ag, As and Sb, and sulphostannates. In addition, various Te and Se minerals, as well as native Te and Se, tellurides of Au, Ag, Pb, Cu and Bi, sulpho-selenotellurides and selenotellurides of Bi, and Ag, Pb, Bi selenides are typical of the deposit. Native As, colusite, and hemusite have been found whilst enargite and famatinite-luzonite are widespread at Ozernovskoe (Kovalenker and Plotinskaya, 2005).

The deposit is controlled by Russia’s Siberian Mining and Metallurgical Alliance (SiGMA) who estimated the deposit’s reserves and resources as of November 2013 to contain 107 tonnes of gold at an average grade of 2.1 g/t Au, which would equate to 51 Mt of ore.

The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 2022.    
This description is a summary from published sources, the chief of which are listed below.
© Copyright Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd.   Unauthorised copying, reproduction, storage or dissemination prohibited.


    Selected References
Kovalenker, V.A. and Plotinskaya, O.Yu.,  2005 - Te and Se mineralogy of Ozernovskoe and Prasolovskoe epithermal gold deposits, Kuril - Kamchatka volcanic belt: in   Au-Ag-Te-Se deposits, IGCP Project 486, 2005 Field Workshop, Kiten, Bulgaria, 14-19 September 2005, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Petrology,   v.43, pp. 118-123.
Takahashi, R., Matsueda, H., Okrugin, V.M., Shikazono, N., Ono, S., Imai, A., Andreeva E.D. and Watanabe, K.,  2013 - Ore-forming ages and sulfur isotope study of hydrothermal deposits in Kamchatka, Russia: in    Resource Geology   v.63 pp. 210-223.


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