Porphyry Copper Deposits Of The Caribbean

INTRODUCTION Porphyry copper deposits have been reported from the Caribbean area by Pease (1966), Cox, et al. (1973), Guild (1974), Kesler, et al. (1975), and others. This chapter summarizes the most widely known characteristics of those deposits. Only one deposit that conceivably can be classed as a porphyry copper occurrence is in production (Pueblo Viejo, Dominican Republic), but others are known whose tonnage and grade are of economic interest. Deposits in this province may be classified as copper-gold or copper-molybdenum types (Kesler, 1972), but deposits associated with quartz-rich plutons that have high Na2O:K2O and high gold:copper but low molybdenum: copper ratios dominate. Porphyry copper occurrences are reported in the literature from Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Cuba. Only the porphyry copper deposits from Puerto Rico are extensively described in the literature; consequently the Caribbean porphyry copper province in general is not as well documented as the southern Cordilleran orogen. Because past published technical descriptions are incomplete, some data presented here are new to the literature. The Caribbean includes the island arcs between North and South America. Porphyry copper occurrences are known from the Greater Antilles, the generally east-west trending group of islands that lies south of North America. Fig. 48, therefore, only covers the Greater Antilles portion of the Caribbean. Porphyry copper deposits in this area are not described by the Lowell and Guilbert (1970) model in details of metallization (general paucity of molybdenum), alteration (scarcity of orthoclase), or petrography (preponderance of quartz diorite). Therefore, this model should be modified to include deposits associated with quartz-bearing plutons such as those found in the Caribbean. In the Meme deposit on Haiti ore occurs in skarn adjacent to the quartz diorite phase of a composite quartz monzonite-granodio-rite-quartz diorite pluton (Kesler, 1968). This deposit, with a K-Ar 66 m.y. date, is not included in Fig. 48 as a porphyry copper deposit because metallization is restricted largely to the intruded rocks. Although the intrusive rocks at the Meme deposit may contain sulfide near skarn contacts they are otherwise essentially unaltered. Porphyry molybdenum deposits as defined by Clarke (1972) have not been reported in the Caribbean area.