Jennifer L. E. Bates
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B. Sc. Honours Thesis
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The Goose Cove copper deposit lies within the Goose Cove Schist of the St. Anthony Complex, northwestern Newfoundland. The initial theory of ore emplacement was epigenetic replacement of the greenschist host rocks (Stephenson, 1937). Field relations, petrography and geochemistry investigated in the course of this thesis indicate an opposing model of formation.
The ore consisting of pyrite, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite and sphalerite is generally confined to the porphyroclastic metavolcanics and related to the main foliation (Sm).
The porphyroclastic metavolcanics are depleted of Cu, Ni and Zn with respect to their protoliths (the undeformed porphyritic pillow lavas of the Ireland Point Volcanics) suggesting a mobilization of the ore-forming elements in the pillow lavas and resulting reconcentration either prior to or synchronous with the Fm folding event.
Although the exact paleoenvironment of the primary pillow lavas cannot be defined, it is likely that the volcanics formed in a tectonically unstable oceanic setting (i.e.: mid-ocean ridge, ocean island or ocean floor). Syngenetic mineralization of the basaltic lavas may have occurred.
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