Anyk Mainville, BSc
A. Mainville1, S. Perrouty1, J. Sutton1, S. Mundreon1,2, P. Mercier-Langevin1,2
1Department of Earth Sciences, Harquail School of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada,
2Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
The Amalgamated Kirkland (AK) gold deposit, located in the Kirkland Lake camp in the southern Abitibi greenstone belt, is considered an orogenic-type gold deposit. It is hosted within the metamorphosed subalkaline to alkalic igneous rocks and clastic sedimentary rocks of the Neoarchean Timiskaming Group (<2679-<2669 Ma), which unconformably overlay older Larder Lake Group mafic metavolcanic flows (2710‒2704 Ma) in proximity to the Larder Lake-Cadillac deformation zone. The gold zones primarily occur in sericite-carbonate-pyrite altered trachytes within the siltstone, sandstone and conglomerate beds of the sedimentary succession, and within cross-cutting dioritic intrusive rocks. Understanding the mineralogical changes associated with increased hydrothermal alteration and gold mineralization in this deposit is critical for improving exploration strategies in the Kirkland Lake camp and in similar settings globally. This study therefore aims to investigate the mineral chemistry variations across the AK gold deposit using various field-ready (µXRF, hyperspectral imaging) and laboratory-based (SEM/EPMA) spectroscopic techniques. To characterize mineralogical changes in response to increasing alteration and mineralization intensity, a suite of 24 representative drill core samples of each rock type of the AK deposit were collected from four drill holes. These samples were categorized into three groups using thin-section petrography: altered with gold mineralization, altered but non-mineralized, and least altered. A µXRF mapping approach will be employed to analyze the elemental distribution in thin-section blocks. SEM/EPMA analyses will be conducted to determine mineral chemistry and validate µXRF data. One of the principal objectives of this research is to test the applicability of µXRF element mapping and hyperspectral imaging techniques to document such alteration mineralogy trends across the AK deposit, and subsequently refine exploration methodologies to better target