Fluid flow and polymetallic sulfide mineralization in the Kettara shear zone (Jebilet Massif, Variscan Belt, Morocco)

• Kettara shear zone hosts a mafic-ultramafic intrusion and a Cu-deposit.
• A regional metamorphic fluid flow occurred through the shear zone.
• Reduction of fluids induced sulfides precipitation in wall rocks of the deposit.

The Kettara shear zone is a regional wrench shear zone within the Jebilet massif of Western Morocco, part of the Variscan orogenic belt. This massif is characterized by bimodal magmatism, largely intrusive, and by a number of polymetallic massive sulfide deposits. A syntectonic mafic-ultramafic intrusion and an adjacent, deformed pyrrhotite-rich massive sulfide deposit are located within a ‘compressional jog’ of the shear zone. Hydrothermal alteration in both the intrusion and the wall rocks adjacent to the deposit is characterized by syntectonic replacement processes leading to formation of chlorite-schists and quartz ± calcite veins. Fluid inclusions in mineralized (pyrrhotite-bearing) quartz veins from the wall rocks adjacent to the deposit and in veins associated with chlorite-schists within the intrusion indicate a prevalence of H2O-CO2-CH4-N2 and H2O-salt fluid systems. In the mineralized veins the fluid shows reducing conditions, with gas dominated by CH4 and N2 and salinities around 7.5 wt% NaCl, whereas in the chlorite shear zones fluid is CO2 dominated and salinities are higher than 23 wt% NaCl. Hydrogen and oxygen isotopic compositions of chlorite and quartz are similar and demonstrate involvement of metamorphic water in both the deposit and the intrusion.The data are consistent with a regional metamorphic fluid flow through the Kettara shear zone. The migrating metamorphic fluids were reduced in the organic matter-rich host rocks leading to deposition of sulfides in the mineralized veins. There are two possible hypotheses for the origin of these mineralized veins: either they were formed during deformation and remobilization of a syn-sedimentary massive sulfide deposit, or they were formed synchronously with the sulfide deposit during development of the Kettara shear zone.