Concealed basalt-matrix diatremes with Cu-Au-Ag-(Mo)-mineralized xenoliths, Santa Cruz Porphyry Cu-(Mo) System, Pinal County, Arizona

The Santa Cruz porphyry Cu-(Mo) system near Casa Grande, Arizona, includes the Sacaton mine deposits and at least five other concealed, mineralized fault blocks with an estimated minimum resource of 1.5 Gt @ 0.6% Cu. The Late Cretaceous-Paleocene system has been dismembered and rotated by Tertiary extension, partially eroded, and covered by Tertiary-Quaternary basin-fill deposits. The mine and mineralized fault blocks, which form an 11 km (~7 miles) by 1.6 km (~1 mile) NE-SW–trending alignment, represent either pieces of one large deposit, several deposits, or pieces of several deposits. The southwestern part of the known system is penetrated by three or more diatremes that consist of heterolithic breccia pipes with basalt and clastic matrices, and subannular tuff ring and maar-fill sedimentary deposits associated with vents. The tephra and maar-fill deposits, which are covered by ~485 to 910 m (~1,600–3,000 ft) of basin fill, lie on a mid-Tertiary erosion surface of Middle Proterozoic granite and Late Cretaceous porphyry, which compose most xenoliths in pipes and are the host rocks of the system. Some igneous xenoliths in the pipes contain bornite-chalcopyrite-covellite assemblages with hypogene grades >1 wt % Cu, 0.01 ounces per ton (oz/t) Au, 0.5 oz/t Ag, and small amounts of Mo (1% Cu and significant Au and Ag could be determined by refinement of breccia pipe geometries, by reassembly of mineralized fault blocks using modal, chemical, and temporal characteristics of hydrothermal mineral assemblages and fluid inclusions, and by paleodrainage analysis.