Metallogenetic evolution of the Canadian Cordilleran Orogen

Abstract

From Introduction: The Canadian Cordilleran Orogenic Belt forms part of the circum-Pacific orogenic zone. It underlies an area of about 1,54 million sq. kilometres, is over 2400 kilometres long and 800 kilometres wide. The region is characteristically mountainous, much of it glaciated and alpine, containing plateaux, trenches, valleys, and fjords. The mountains, in general, rise to elevations between 2100 m and 3600 m above sea level, although Mount Logan in the St. Elias Mountains attains an altitude of 6000 m. The Canadian Cordillera is divided into two dominant orogenic belts: the eastern Columbian Orogenic Belt comprising defonned miogeosynclinal rocks and the western Pacific Orogenic Belt comprising allochthonous eugeosynclinal rocks. The Cordillera is further subdivided into five longitudinal tectonic belts within which rocks are broadly similar in type, age, and history. These belts are, from east to west: the Rocky Mountain Belt, the Omineca Crystalline Belt, the Intermontane Belt, the Coast Plutonic Complex, and the Insular Belt (Wheeler et al., 1972a). The Canadian Cordillera is important in that it contains: one of the world's largest lead-zinc-silver mine, Sullivan; the second-largest molybdenum mine, Endako; one of the most important concentrations of porphyry copper deposits, Highland Valley; Canada's largest tungsten mines, Cantung and Mactung; and Canada's second-largest silver district, Keno Hill (Sutherland Brown et a1., 1971). In addition, it contains several large massive sulphide and lead-zinc deposits.