Gordon W. Turner HBSc thesis abstract

The Hadley Prospect is a massive Zn-Pb mineral occurrence situated in the Savant Lake area of northwestern Ontario.  This occurrence displays many of the characteristics typical of volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits found in the Canadian Shield.  The thesis area is found in a felsic volcanic pile of bedded tuffs intercalated with fine to medium grained flows and lapilli/tuff breccia units with localized metasedimentary and quartz porphoritic intrusive units.

Geochemical sampling was implemented in an attempt to locate an alteration zone in the footwall rocks.  A total of 16 samples were taken for analysis by atomic absorption techniques for the elements Na, Ca, Mg, K, total Fe, Co, Cr, Cu, Zn, Mn, and Ni.  The survey failed to intersect an alteration zone and showed the hanging wall and footwall units to be essentially the same.

Textural analysis of samples taken from the thesis area revealed a distinct systematic sequence of metamorphic and cataclastic events.  Recrystallization, cataclastic, and replacement textures indicate a major metamorphic event accompanied by a shearing event with a possible later minor thermal event have acted on the occurrence since deposition.  The shearing event is believed to be responsible for the tectonic transport of the alteration zone to the western extension of the occurrence thus removing it from the vicinity of the geochemical sampling.  The alteration zone is contained in a pyroxene-amphibole-olivine breccia unit at the western extremity of the occurrence.

The major metamorphic period is a skarn-forming type metamorphism which has produced a contact areole over the regional metamorphism produced during the Kenoran Orogeny.

A comparison of the occurrence to the model of Sangster (1972) for fumaroltic volcanogenic massive sulphides revealed an excellent correlation and indicated a similar origin for the Hadley Prospect.