Abstract The dominant elements of structural style in the Canadian Cordillera are related to the Insular, Coast, Intermontane, Omineca, and Foreland morphogeological belts, of which the Coast and Omineca belts represent greatly uplifted granitic and metamorphic orogenic core zones. Structures commonly verge outward from the core zones so that, in cross-section, the Cordilleran orogen contains two symmetrical suborogens (Fig. 17.1, in pocket). The first to develop was the Omineca Belt wherein Mesozoic deformation is attributed to the collision of the Intermontane Superterrane with ancestral North America. Orogenesis in the Coast Belt is attributed to the long-lived development of a volcanic-plutonic arc perhaps coupled with collision of the Insular and Intermontane superterranes beginning in Jurassic time. Subsequent dextral strike-slip faulting greatly modified the distribution of components of the amalgamated terranes. Mesozoic and Cenozoic structures in the Insular Belt comprise two main elements: 1) contractional, subduction or accretion related faults and folds in the Saint Elias Mountains and Vancouver Island and 2) dextral strikeslip faults and transpressive folds in the Queen Charlotte Islands. In the Saint Elias Mountains contractional structures are cut by Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous plutons, and, in the southern Insular Belt, both extension and contraction structures are associated with hypabyssal, felsic dykes, sills and small plutons. On Vancouver Island northwest-trending anticlinoria and northerly trending Early and Middle Jurassic plutons dominate the structural grain; on the Queen Charlotte Islands, similar plutons are of Late Jurassic age. The structurally symmetrical Coast Belt consists of a western part with westward verging

Abstract The Canadian Cordillera is a region of great geological and metallogenic diversity. Just as each Cordilleran terrane preserves a stratigraphic record different from those of neighbouring terranes, characteristic suites of mineral deposits, as integral parts of their host terranes, reflect fundamental differences in their depositional environments. The miogeocline and displaced equivalents in the eastern Cordillera, as well as each of the terranes comprising the accreted collage of the western Cordillera, possess unique lithotectonic characteristics that are reflected in the types of mineral deposits they contain. Predominantly stratiform deposits of Zn, Pb, Cu, Ba, and Fe and skarn deposits of W, Zn, Pb, Mo, and Sn are hosted by layered sedimentary strata of the ancestral North American miogeocline. The similar types of mineral deposits of displaced (Cassiar) and/or deformed (Kootenay, Nisling) continental margin terranes support their cratonal linkage. Stikinia and Quesnellia, which together constitute the bulk of the Intermontane Superterrane, host a suite of mineral deposits typical of their predominantly calc-alkalic volcanic-arc composition: abundant porphyry Cu,Mo deposits, Cu, Zn volcanogenic massive sulphides, Cu and Au skarns, and Au,Ag veins. On the other hand, the ophiolitic Cache Creek and Slide Mountain terranes of the Intermontane Superterrane display distinctive kinds of mineral deposits typical of their oceanic origin: magmatic Cu,Ni, volcanogenic Cu,Zn and mesothermal Au veins, in addition to ultramafic pluton-related asbestos, jade, Cr and platinum group element (PGE) deposits. The dominantly arc volcanic character of the diverse terranes of the Coast Belt is reflected in their metallogeny: volcanogenic Cu,Zn, porphyry Cu,Mo,

Abstract The Canadian Cordillera has abundant minable deposits of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Mo. It has adequate Ni, W, Au, Ag, Hg, and Fe. The Cordillera shows a pronounced regional zoning of metals in background abundances in rocks and an associated zoning in class of deposits and contained metals. These zonal changes occur sequentially, across the strike of the five subparallel tectonic belts.