Ben M Frieman

Colorado School of Mines · Department of Geology and Geological Engineering

A data set consisting of 376 broadband and long‐period MT measurements was used to generate the first ever 3D resistivity model of the Archean western Superior Craton. The modeled resistivity structure is compared to coincident seismic reflection data. The observed geophysical signatures are interpreted within the context of the late stages of crus...

The San Albino deposit is an orogenic gold occurrence hosted by a low-angle thrust that is the site of a new open-pit mine in northern Nicaragua. The deposit is hosted in greenschist facies rocks of the Jurassic metasedimentary Neuvo Segovia Formation. The schist was uplifted and exposed during arc accretion and Cretaceous thin-skin deformation, fo...

Crustal and lithospheric architecture provide a first-order control on Earth evolution, including mineral systems. The ability to understand the internal nature and margins of crustal and lithospheric blocks, in both space and time, is vital in order to use continent architecture as a predictive tool in mineral exploration. In this study, we use U-...

The Neoarchean marked an important turning point in the evolution of Earth when cratonization processes resulted in progressive amalgamation of relatively small crustal blocks into larger and thicker continental masses, which now comprise the ancient core of our continents. Although evidence of cratonization is preserved in the ancient continental...

Some of the world’s largest orogenic gold deposits are hosted within granite-greenstone subprovinces of the Superior Province of Canada. The known gold endowment of the western Wabigoon subprovince is much less than that of the Abitibi subprovince, despite both Neoarchean subprovinces sharing similar structural and metallogenic histories. Further,...

Although magmatic- and metamorphic- derived fluids are widely recognized mineralizing agents, the role of crustal architecture in defining source and sink zones within the middle to lower crust and upper mantle of ancient orogens remains enigmatic. The globally largest and best-preserved Archean greenstone belts lie in the Superior Province, Canada...

Lu-Hf laser ablation-multi-collector-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) analysis was conducted on ~1800 detrital zircon grains from successor basins of the Archean Abitibi and Pontiac subprovinces of Ontario and Quebec, Canada, and paired with previous U-Pb LA-MC-ICP-MS analyses of the same grains. Results are used to const...

The geoscientific data presented in this paper are a foundation for experimental and exploration geological research in the western Wabigoon and southern Abitibi subprovinces of the Superior Province in Ontario, Canada. New geological interpretations, in map and GIS formats, along with compiled mineral deposit information, structural databases, mag...

With the increasing size and complexity of geoscientific databases, statistical tools and machine learning algorithms are needed to highlight subtle patterns within dense data clouds and reduce human-related bias in geological mapping. This study presents a new tool that maps structural complexity using circular variance and spherical dispersion in...

The nature of lithospheric evolution and style of the driving tectonic processes during the growth and stabilisation of continental crust in the Archean remain enigmatic. The hotter, rheologically weak Archean crust would be unable to support thick orogens. Thus, gravitational collapse likely occurred when continental fragments became overthickened...

We explored the effects of brittle-ductile deformation processes on the localization of strain and hydrothermal fluid flow throughout the formation and evolution of a fault zone. This was accomplished through detailed structural analysis of the Kirana deformation zone (Kdz), a splay of the Archean crustal-scale, orogenic gold-hosting Larder Lake-Ca...

Located within the Archean western Wabigoon subprovince (WWS) in north-western Ontario (Fig. 1), the NE-trending Manitou-Dinorwic Deformation Zone (MDdz) hosts 95% of the historical gold production in the Dryden area (Manitou Gold Inc., 2010). The goal of this study is to document the structural development, alteration and kinematic history of the...

To investigate the tectonic development of the southern Superior Province, new U-Pb laser ablation inductively-coupled mass-spectrometry analysis of detrital zircon was conducted on graywacke samples from successor basins of the Abitibi and Pontiac subprovinces. The three successor basin successions investigated are the 2690-2685 Ma Porcupine assem...

The Abitibi greenstone belt, which straddles the border between Ontario and Quebec in eastern Canada, represents one of the largest and best-preserved Neoarchean greenstone belts in the world. The belt consists of E-trending successions of folded volcanic and sedimentary rocks and intervening domes of intrusive rocks. Submarine volcanism occurred b...

The kinematic record and bulk viscous strength of polyphase rocks depend in part upon the relative strengths and distributions of rheologically distinct fabric elements. Here, we explore the effects of microstructural and rheological heterogeneity in porphyroblastic schists. Electron backscatter diffraction and petrographic analyses reveal asymmetr...

This thesis investigates the role of microstructural and rheological heterogeneity and their relative influences on the kinematics of porphyroblasts and bulk strength of porphyroblastic schists. Porphyroblasts are valuable because they commonly record long histories of coupled metamorphism and deformation in their orientations and internal inclusio...