Genesis of Copper Ores from The Maike Manifestation of The Mayatas Ore District (Northern Ulytau, Kazakhstan)

The Mayke deposit is located within the Mayatas ore district, northeast of the village of Mayatas. The mineralization zone with copper ores no more than 35 cm thick is confined to outcrops of graphite-quartz-rutile-siderite-muscovite-chlorite schists, which are an integral part of the graphite-quartz-chlorite strata. The copper ore of the Mayke ore occurrence is 95% chalcopyrite. Also present in copper ore are: violarite, pentlandite, pyrite, pyrrhotite, sphalerite. In the violarite of the Mayke ore occurrence of the Mayatas ore district, high concentrations of platinum group elements were established for the first time using laser ablation with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), which is quite consistent with their magmatic origin. The magmatic nature of Mayke copper ores is also confirmed by the nature of the distribution of siderophile and chalcophile elements in Ni, Cu sulfides and the Ni, Se, Cd ratios of chalcopyrite.