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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Scheelite-Bearing Metalliferous Sequences of the Peloritani Mountains, Northeastern Sicily (with some Remarks on Tungsten Metallogenesis in the Calabrian-Peloritan Arc)

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The Peloritani Mountains (Northeastern Sicily) are part of a segment of the Hercynian chain recognized in the Calabrian-Peloritan Arc, geotectonically defined by a pre-Hercynian crystalline basement (Aspromonte Nappe + Mandanici Unit) overthrust and overturned on its Paleozoic (Cambro-Ordovician up to Devonian Carboniferous) volcanosedimentary cover. Tungsten (scheelite) and associated polymetallic stratabound ores, more or less intensely affected by the pre-Hercynian and Hercynian tectonometamorphic events, are confined to the pre-Hercynian basement. In particular, the most significant scheelite-tourmaline (arsenopyrite) and scheelite-carbonate-quartz (albite) mineralizations could be considered as tungsten (B-, As-, silica, Na-)-bearing exhalites within a peculiar volcanosedimentary uppermost unit of “Cambrian” age (roughly corresponding to the present lowmetamorphic Alpine Mandanici tectonic unit). The Mandanici Unit stratabound ores, essentially outcropping in Sicily, show a metal assemblage [tungsten-fluorine Pb-Zn (Ag, As) with subordinate antimony and copper] largely inherited by the skarns and hydrothermal veins associated with the late Hercynian S-type granitoids, widespread in Calabria. On the whole, the geological and metallogenic framework of the “Calabro-Peloritan Hercynian Range” sensu Ferla et al. (1982-83) displays interesting analogies and predictable correlation possibilities with those of other segments of the circummediterranean Hercynian Chain.