Evidence for participation of microbial mats in the deposition of the siliciclastic ‘ore formation’ in the Copperbelt of Zambia

The Copperbelt of Zambia is the world’s largest sediment-hosted stratiform copper province, hosted in siliciclastic sediments of the Roan Group, which forms the basal part of the Neoproterozoic–Paleozoic Katanga Supergroup. Much of the ore deposition occurred between 880 Ma and 780 Ma, on a rimmed platform consisting of a carbonate barrier, a lagoonal basin and tidal flats grading into sabkhas in the hinterland. Various sedimentary structures developed in the ore formation at the Mindola Open Pit mine, are herein considered to be microbially induced and are identified as microbial shrinkage cracks, wrinkle structures, mat deformation structures, petees, concentric microfaults, and microbial mat chips. The occurrence of these structures in all ore formation units at the Mindola Mine suggests microbial mats grew on the paleo-sediment surface throughout deposition of the cupriferous succession. As these structures require cohesive layers, the mats were likely of the cyanobacterial type, that grew in the well aerated intertidal to lower supratidal zones. Cyanobacterial mats typically consist of a surface layer of filamentous cyanobacteria underlain by anaerobic, heterotrophic sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB). A distinct sulfide mineral zonation, developed in all major deposits of the Copperbelt, ranges from barren supratidal (sabkha) sediments, through chalcocite in the lower supratidal zone, to bornite followed by chalcopyrite in the intertidal zone, and pyrite in the subtidal zone and anoxic lagoonal depotcentre. This sequence of minerals can be modelled as a paragenetic sequence of mineralization resulting from the progressive reduction of a source fluid, indicating that geochemical conditions of ore formation, at least, are produced by the activity of SRB.