Kuh e Surmeh |
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Iran |
Main commodities:
Zn Pb
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Super Porphyry Cu and Au
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IOCG Deposits - 70 papers
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All papers now Open Access.
Available as Full Text for direct download or on request. |
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The Kuh-e-Surmeh Zn-Pb deposit is located within the Zagros fold belt in South-western Iran and in 2002 supported a small mine producing 4000 tpa @ 15% Zn, 15% Pb (#Location: 28° 4' 57"N, 52° 5' 38"E).
The deposit lies within the Permian to Triassic Zagros carbonate platform, hosted by Permian dolomites and limestones of the 120 m thick Lower Dalan Formation. This formation overlies an 85 m thick Devonian–Lower Permian unit composed of conglomerate, sandstone, shale. The overlying rocks are an 850 m thick Upper Permian–Triassic succession of dolomite, gypsum, limestone, sandstone and shale. These rocks have been subjected to gentle folding, faulting and thrusting and lower greenschist metamorphism (USGS Mineral Resources On-Line).
The immediate host sequence comprises carbonate breccia, dolomite and dolomitic limestone, with the original massive dolomite unit having been strongly brittle-fractured on all scales, providing excellent geochemically reactive fluid conduits/traps for ore fluids, while, in contrast, the overlying laminated gypsum-limestone unit was deformed in a more ductile manner with abundant translations planes, and acted as a relatively impermeable and less reactive fluid barrier. Consequently, the ores, while stratabound on a regional scale, are thus both structurally/rheologically and lithologically/geochemically controlled.
Three ore bodies, Choobandak, Dasht-e-Bahran, and Cheshmeh Sormeh, are known, each separated by faults which follow the trend of a major NW-SE-anticline. A salt diapir which truncates the succession some 5 km to the NW, is surrounded by a pronounced aureole of brecciated country rocks.
The mineralisation comprises some stratabound sulphides as framboidal pyrite and sphalerite with associated vein and breccia-hosted sulphides, zoned from a Zn-rich top (14% Zn; 2-3% Pb) to a Pb-rich base. Non-sulfide ores (mainly carbonates) form a cap over the underlying sulphide ores, with a Pb-rich upper section (40% Pb, 10% Zn) and a more Zn-rich base (15% Zn; 20% Pb). Vein and breccia-hosted ores are restricted to the massive dolomitic Lower Dalan Fm., overlain by well-bedded limestone and gypsum of the Middle Dalan Formation.
The mineralogy of the deposit is described as including: sphalerite, galena, anglesite, cerussite, pyrite and marcasite, barite, dolomite, gypsum, chalcopyrite, chalcocite, covellite, magnetite and hematite (USGS Mineral Resources On-Line).
The deposit was discovered in 1973, with mining commencing soon after. Reserves are quoted at 2.8 Mt @ 10% Zn, 4.8% Pb (USGS Mineral Resources On-Line, viewed 2104).
The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 2002.
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.
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Liaghat S, Moore F, Jami M 2000 - The Kuh-e-Surmeh mineralization, a carbonate-hosted Zn-Pb deposit in the Simply Folded Belt of the Zagros Mountains, SW Iran: in Mineralium Deposita v35 pp 72-78
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