The best of the best of the best:
"The Muruntau gold deposit, Uzbekistan, is localized in a shear zone related to upper Carboniferous to lower Permian accretion of the Kazakhstan-North Tien Shan and Karakum-Tarim tectonic plates. The gold ore was deposited syndeformationally in an extensional stepover along a northwest-striking left-lateral fault zone under ductile to brittle conditions. The host rocks are carbonaceous shales, siltstones, sandstones, and chert. Early stage alteration was quartz-albite-biotite-chlorite-oligoclase with some pyrite and gold. The predominant period of gold-sulfide deposition accompanied K-feldspar, phlogopite, muscovite, Mg-Chlorite, and Fe-Mn carbonate alteration. Later stage veinlets contain tourmaline, and the latest stage of alteration was calcite veinlets with pyrite, TiO2 and rare-earth element minerals. MURUNTAU IS PROBABLY THE GREATEST GOLD DEPOSIT IN THE WORLD, WITH A GLOBAL RESOURCE OF MORE THAN 1 bt @ 3.5 to 4 g/t Au for 4500 to 5000t OF CONTAINED GOLD (140 to 150 MILLION OZS.) amenable to open pit extraction. The current pit is approximately 2.5x3.5 km and 300 m deep. It produces around 64 t (2 Moz) of gold per year. Mineralisation occurs as a stockwork vein system within a sequence of lower Palaeozoic carbonaceous sediments, and is associated with syn-deformational granitoid intrusion in a structurally complex zone. The orebody is located within the great South Tien Shan gold belt."
Hmmmm. Can Lipangue match this? It would be nice but just a little too far fetched to hope for! |
