The Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold deposit, Roxby Downs, South Australia

Journal Article · Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1983 · Econ. Geol.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2113/gsecongeo.78.5.799· OSTI ID:5166039

Roberts, D E; Hudson, G R.T.

The Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold deposit appears to be a new type of strata-bound sediment-hosted ore deposit. It is located 650 km north-northwest of Adelaide in South Australia and was discovered in 1975. It has an areal extent exceeding 20 km/sup 2/ with vertical thicknesses of mineralization up to 350 m. The deposit is estimated to contain in excess of 2,000 million metric tons of mineralized material with an average grade of 1.6 percent copper, 0.06 percent uranium oxide, and 0.6 g/metric ton gold. The deposit occurs in the basement beneath 350 m of unmineralized, flat-lying Adelaidean (late Proterozoic) to Cambrian sediments in the Stuart shelf region of South Australia. The host rocks of the deposit are unmetamorphosed and are probably younger than 1,580 m.y. The deposit is spatially related to coincident gravity and magnetic anomalies and the intersection of west-northwest- and north-northwest-trending lineaments. The Proterozoic sediments comprising the local basement sequence are predominantly sedimentary breccias ranging from matrix-poor granite breccias to matrix-rich polymict breccias containing clasts of a variety of rock types. This sequence is over 1 km thick and has been divided into two main units--the Olympic Dam Formation and the Greenfield Formation. The Olympic Dam Formation has five members, three of which are matrix rich. The Greenfield Formation has three members, the lower two being very hematite rich while the upper has a significant volcanic component. Pervasive hematite, chlorite, and sericite alteration of varying intensity affects all the basement sequence.

• Research Organization: Roxby Management Services Proprietary Limited, Unley, South Australia
• OSTI ID: 5166039
• Journal Information: Econ. Geol.; (United States), Vol. 78:8
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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