U-Pb geochronology of the igneous rocks associated to the Rio Tinto VMS deposit

Trabajo presentado en el 14th Biennial Meeting: Mineral Resources to Discover, celebrado en Québec (Canadá), del 20 al 23 de agosto de 2017Rio Tinto in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB) is the largest volcanogenic massive sulfide concentration on Earth. Its geology is composed of several igneous lithotypes associated with the Volcanic Sedimentary Complex (VSC) of Late Devonian-Early Carboniferous age. In this work, we present new SHRIMP U-Pb zircon dating of the rocks hosting the ore, including: 1) volcaniclastic felsic rocks of the Zarandas area; 2) the hydrothermally altered felsic rocks hosting the stockwork; 3) equivalent felsic coherent rocks but lacking hydrothermal alteration from Zarandas; and, 4) a late rhyolite cryptodome that crosscuts the mineralized Rio Tinto rocks, 5) a granodiorite and 6) a tonalite, the last two in the village of Gerena. The obtained ages establish the relationship between these lithotypes and provide clues on the formation of this world class deposit.The authors of this paper would like to thank the staff of the Laboratory of High Resolution Geochronology of the Institute of Geosciences of the University of São Paulo (GeoLab-IGc-USP) for their help with the SHRIMP analyzes and Angelo Farci from Atalaya Mining for helping with sampling. We would also like to thank the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil (CNPq) for the PhD grant awarded to Caio Ribeiro de Mello.Peer reviewe