Proceedings of the International Symposia on Geoscience Resources and Environments of Asian Terranes (GREAT 2008), 4th IGCP 516,and

5th APSEG; November 24-26, 2008, Bangkok, Thailand

The Monywa Copper Deposits, Myanmar: Chalcocite-covellite Veins and Breccia Dykes in a Late Miocene Epithermal System
Mitchell, A.H.G.1*, Win Myint 2, Kyi Lynn2, Myint Thein Htay2, Maw Oo2, and Thein Zaw2
1. Ivanhoe Myanmar Holdings, Limited, 234 A-1, U Wisara Road, Kamayut Township, Yangon, Myanmar, 2. Myanmar Ivanhoe Copper Company Limited, 70I Bochein Street, Pyay Road, Hlaing Township, Yangon, Myanmar *Corresponding author e-mail: imhle@myanmar.com.mm

Extended Abstract
The Monywa copper deposits are west of the Chindwin River flood plain, 115 km WNW of Mandalay. There are four deposits (Fig. 1), Sabetaung where open pit production began in 1983, Sabetaung South also in production, the larger Kyisintaung deposit immediately W of Sabetaung, and Letpadaung, by far the largest, 7 km SE of Sabetaung. Copper resources at Monywa prior to mining totaled around 2 billion tonnes ore with over 7 million tonnes contained copper, making Monywa the second largest copper deposit in SE Asia. This account of the geology, based mostly on recent pit mapping, is the first published description since that by Kyaw Winn and D.J. Kirwin, and the start of largescale mining, in 1998. The deposits lie within the Central Basin of western Myanmar (Fig. 2) on the eastern flank of the Wuntho-Popa magmatic arc, a 460 km-long geanticlinal uplift which is the northern continuation of the Sunda arc. The uplift exposes Upper Cretaceous granodioritic plutons intrusive into pillow basalts, diabase and gabbro and minor gneiss, and Cenozoic calc-alkaline intrusions and eruptive rocks. To the W are the Chindwin Minbu sub-basins with their 10 km thick Figure 1. Simplified geological map of Monywa copper succession of Albian to Pliocene sedimentary rocks, and deposits and surroundings. to the E the largely Neogene succession which occupies the Shwebo sub-basin. The Indo-Burman Ranges, W of the basins, consist of two belts separated by an E-dipping thrust. In the Eastern belt, up to 3188 m elevation, Upper Triassic flysch and ophiolitic rocks overlie mica schist. In the Western belt, a sequence of highly deformed Senonian pelagic limestones, mudstones and turbidite sandstones are overlain by Paleocene and younger clastics which pass westwards into the Chittagong Tripura fold belt. Most of western Myanmar and the fold belt are moving northwards on the Burma plate, bounded in the W and N by a subduction zone and in the E by the Sagaing Fault. Mineralization at Monywa is hosted by dykes and sills of porphyritic biotite andesite, quartz andesite and minor dacite, by minor rhyolite dykes, and by the folded Upper Pegu Group (Fig. 1) which the volcanic rocks intrude. The mineralized sequence, of late Miocene age, overlies Mesozoic rocks of the Wuntho-Popa arc, and consists of sandstones and shales, overlain by more than 300 m of late Miocene andesitic pyroclastics, possibly including diatreme apron deposits. The pyroclastics are cross-bedded and include abundant clasts of silicified and phyllic-altered andesite porphyry, quartz-pyrite rock and pyrite. Sabetaung South pit is mostly in sandstone, Sabetaung in pyroclastics and andesite porphyry intrusions, Kyisintaung in andesite porphyry, and Hydrothermal alteration assemblages in mineralized rocks are predominantly advanced argillic consisting of replacement quartz together with alunite, pyrophyllite, and minor diaspore, kaolinite or dickite, accompanied by pyrite and indicative of acid sulphate fluids and rock-fluid

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Proceedings of the International Symposia on Geoscience Resources and Environments of Asian Terranes (GREAT 2008), 4th IGCP 516,and 5th APSEG; November 24-26, 2008, Bangkok, Thailand

reactions at epithermal depths down to 2 km. At Sabetaung South the mineralized sandstone is mostly altered to quartz-sericite-pyrite; at Sabetaung, alteration includes two bodies of copper-poor texture-destroyed quartz-pyritealunite within alunite and sericite-bearing assemblages. Around the deposits andesite porphyry is variably chloritised with quartz-calcite-pyrite veinlets, to more than 200 m depth. Mineralization extends downwards from the base of oxidation, near the water table mostly between 70 and 120 m above sea level, through a vertical interval which at Letpadaung locally exceeds 540 m. The predominant copper sulphides are chalcocite and digenite, with subordinate covellite, invariably accompanied by pyrite. Enargite, rarely seen in the pits, is reported in petrographic studies from all the deposits. Chalcopyrite and bornite occur as inclusions in pyrite. Most chalcocite is crystalline, either massive or coating pyrite, but black sooty chalcocite also occurs at all elevations. Among the few assays for additional metals, 28 samples from Kyisintaung drill core averaged 0.15 ppm Au, 23 ppm Ag, 85 ppm As, 18 ppm Mo, 12 ppm Co and 0.18% Ba, together with 0.59% Cu. Mineralization (Fig. 3) in the pits and in Kyisintaung and Letpadaung drill core occurs in breccia dykes, in thick shallow veins, in spaced stockwork veins, sheeted veins, and through-going shallow-dipping veins, and as disseminations. Breccia dykes and steep veins mostly trend NE, but NW strikes predominate in Sabetaung South. Breccia dykes are a prominent feature, most are steeply-dipping bodies with parallel margins, but a few splay upwards or follow low-angle structures. They are clast-supported with angular fragments of wall rock, and rounded clasts of andesite porphyry and rarely massive chalcocite. Breccia dyke widths in the pits are mostly less than 1 m, and decrease with depth, but some at Letpadaung are more than 10 m wide. Unmineralized breccia dykes have a mud matrix. In mineralized breccia dykes or hydrothermal breccias, chalcocite and covellite occur as matrix together with pyrite and replacement quartz, usually with alunite in vugs and sometimes accompanied by coarse euhedal barite. Veins of chalcocite-pyrite, chalcocite-covellite-pyrite or massive pyrite are common within the dykes. Veins are planar structures and include sulphide-coated fractures. The thick shallow veins are mostly steeply-dipping and up to a few metres wide but narrow downwards and some disappear within 10 to 30 m of the mineralization surface. Spaced stockwork veins are up to 20 cm wide and tens of cm apart. Through-going shallow-dipping veins can persist for over 50 m and are mostly less than 10 cm wide. Sheeted veins are close-spaced vertical or steeply-dipping cm wide structures, largely confined to a 130 m wide NE-trending zone in Sabetaung. Although visually impressive, sheeted veins do not everywhere carry significant grade. Throughout the pits, most veins

Figure 2. Sketch map of part of Myanmar and region to west showing location of Monywa copper deposits relative to main structural features. Chittagong-Tripura fold belt CTFB. Indian continent: FS Foreland Spur, H Himalayas, M Mikir Hills, S Shillong Plateau. IndoBurman Ranges: EB Eastern belt, WB Western belt. Jade Mines uplift JM. Strato-volcanoes: L Mt. Loimye, P Popa, T Taungthonlon. Structures: NT Naga Thrust, SF Sagaing Fault, SZ subduction zone. Sub-basins: CSB Chindwin, HB Hukawng, PSB Pathein, SB Shwebo, SSB Salin (Minbu). M Mandalay, Y Yangon. Letpadaung in quartz andesite porphyry and pyroclastics.

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Figure 3. Cartoon schematic cross-section illustrating mineralized structures and leached cap, and relationship to sand-gravel cover at northern end of Sabetaung pit. Mineralized rock and leached cap here is andesite porphyry. Elevation relative to sea level. Cu-clay and pyrite curves indicate variation in ontent with depth. cut breccia dykes. Disseminated chalcocite coats pyrite grains and is most common at shallow depths. It also occurs throughout the Sabetaung high-grade zone, a vertical carrot-shaped body up to 30 m wide. Its upper levels contain up to 30 percent Cu and include massive chalcocite. Below, disseminated chalcocite replaces plagioclase phenocrysts but is locally leached, leaving a porous framework of replacement quartz; breccia dykes are cut by planar veins of crystalline chalcocite and soft black amorphous chalcocite. A latest Miocene age for the mineralization is implied by a K/Ar age of 5.8 Ma on an andesite porphyry dyke SW of Kyisintaung. We consider this and other unaltered or chloritised dykes to be immediately pre-mineral but distal to mineralization. Early to middle Miocene K/Ar ages on hydrothermal minerals are not easily reconciled with the inferred late Miocene stratigraphic age of host rocks. The Kyisintaung and Letpadaung deposits are overlain by spectacular barren leached caps locally more than 200 m thick and forming hills rising to 185 and 240 m above the

Figure 4. Schematic speculative cross-section through Sabetaung during hypogene mineralization.

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Proceedings of the International Symposia on Geoscience Resources and Environments of Asian Terranes (GREAT 2008), 4th IGCP 516,and 5th APSEG; November 24-26, 2008, Bangkok, Thailand

plain (Fig. 3). During prolonged regional uplift, and consequent fall of the water table, mineralized rock was exhumed and oxidized; acid water from oxidation of the abundant residual pyrite leached copper and re-deposited it as supergene chalcocite below the water table where it replaced pyrite. The descending acid water also resulted in argillisation to depths of 50 to 100 m below the base of oxidation. Possibly around 75% of the copper in the upper levels of the deposits is supergene chalcocite-digenite, a product of continuous re-cycling and progressive enrichment. In the NE part of the Sabetaung and Sabetaung South pits mineralization and locally leached cap are overlain by super-mature gravels and strongly cross-bedded sands (Fig. 3), possibly the basal part of the regionally widespread late Pliocene-Quaternary Upper Irrawaddian (Fig. 1). The sands around the deposits are a potential environment for exotic copper derived from the oxidizing surface of the enrichment zone. The Monywa deposits, first drilled in 1957, were interpreted by a Japanese team in 1973 as epithermal and analogous to their Nansatsu-type massive sulphide (high sulphidation) gold deposits; they were re-interpreted as supergeneenriched porphyry copper deposits by a United Nations-supported project and R.H. Sillitoe (in United Nations 1978), and finally re-identified as high sulphidation by D.J. Kirwin in 1995 and by feasibility study consultants in 1996. Mineralization can be explained by condensation in meteoric water of magmatic SO2 gas ascending from crystallizing melt at the roots of the andesite porphyry dykes (Fig. 4). This magma is no doubt related to ascent of metamorphic water and partial melting during eastward subduction of the oceanic Indian plate beneath the Burma plate (Fig. 2). Conceivably, a porphyry copper deposit could be present somewhere beneath the Monywa ore bodies.

Acknowledgement
We thank the owners for permission to publish, and D.J. Kirwin for helpful comments.

Keywords: Monywa copper, breccia dykes, epithermal. References Kyaw Winn and Kirwin D.J., 1998. Exploration, geology and mineralization of the Monywa Copper deposits, central Myanmar. In Porphyry and Hydrothermal copper and gold deposits: a global perspective. Proceedings of the Australian Mineral Foundation Conference, Perth, 61-74. United Nations 1978. Memorandum, Letpadaung Taung, Technical report No. 7, BUR/72/002, United Nations Development Programme, Office of Technical Co-operation of United Nations, Rangoon, 36p.

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