Cerro Choique: a multi-episodic shallow epithermal system, Somún Curá Massif, Patagonia, Argentina

HUGHES, D.; JOVIC, S.; GUIDO, D.

Conferencia; SEG 2019 ? South American Metallogeny: Sierra to Craton; 2019

Several epithermal golddeposits hosted by Triassic-Jurassic volcanic rocks have been discovered inArgentinean extra-Andean Patagonia during the last decades. These depositslargely belong to epithermal low to intermediate sulphidation type associatedwith bimodal volcanism in back-arc settings. Examples are the world-classdeposits Cerro Vanguardia and Cero Negro vein systems, located in the DeseadoMassif (Schalamuk et al., 1997; Fig. 1a). The Somún Curá Massif was lessstudied and explored than the Deseado Massif, and the first epithermal goldoccurrences were identified at the Los Menucos area in 1995, in the northern SomúnCurá Massif (Franco et al., 1999; Fig. 1a) mainly associated with low andintermediate sulphidation epithermal deposits, but also with hydrothermalalteration zones related with high sulphidation epithermal deposit (Ducart et.al., 2006). Cerro Choique represents one of these deposits with the presence ofshallow epithermal features and a complex hydrothermal and volcanic evolution.